


A Home For You

by KaytiKazoo



Series: How To Redeem One Grant Ward [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Cunnilingus, Diary/Journal, F/M, Future Fic, Grant Ward Feels, Grant Ward Redemption, Post-Canon, Time Travel, Vaginal Sex, fitzsimmons' daughter - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:06:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23957368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaytiKazoo/pseuds/KaytiKazoo
Summary: Bitty Fitz-Simmons is going to save Grant Ward, and she's just stubborn enough to do it.
Relationships: Grant Ward/Original Female Character(s), Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Series: How To Redeem One Grant Ward [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653124
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

_I want a back splash and a house cat_  
_I wanna make a home for you_  
_I want a TV and a settee_  
_I wanna live alone with you_  
_And when you wake up in the middle of the night_  
_I won't complain if you turn on the light_

-House Key by Scott Helman 

The Lighthouse in 2005 was quiet, eerie, and lonely. She didn’t know where to start, or how to go about finding Grant Ward. The first logical step was to orient herself, so Bitty set out to town to buy a newspaper, a journal, and a candy bar. That last item was for her own pleasure, because she hadn’t had a terrible chocolate bar in weeks. Even on the road with Grant, she’d had just salty snacks and donuts. She had a craving. And considering she was joy riding across time for a boy, she wasn’t drawing a line at candy. That’s not really the point. 

In her journal, she wrote to her dad, alone in the world with no one who could find and save her if something went wrong. She started, hoping that she could fend off her fear if she talked through it. 

* * *

_Dear Dad,_

_I figured I would document my experience, the way you’ve always taught me, that way this is science and not just fucking around. That’s the difference, right? Between science and fucking around? Documenting your observations and findings? That’s what I’m doing._

_I know you’re not very happy with me right now, given what I’ve done in the last couple of weeks, but if anyone understands what I’m going to do, it’ll be you, won’t it? Please, if I ever let you read this, read it with an open mind, and remember what you’ve done for Mum. If there’s anything you’ve ingrained in me is that you love her so deeply that you would do anything to help her, to save her, to bring her back._

_I don’t know what you expected to happen when all of my bedtime stories growing up were about Daring Leo rescuing Brave Jemma and in turn, Brave Jemma saving Daring Leo. I suspect you never expected me to fall in love with a man you deemed a villain when you told me how deep your bond was. Maybe he is. Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t believe that. Not yet. You’d like the man he was, before Garrett, before Hydra, even before SHIELD. He was a kid just trying to figure out who he was, and where he fit in the world._

_What I’m hoping to do is convince him to step away from Garrett and Hydra and everything that goes with it. I’m hoping that he’ll choose me over that, and come back to this good man he’s struggling to be. I’m going to try. I hope that you’re proud of me for at least trying, even if you’re not in love with the reasons behind it. I hope you trust me to know what I’m doing._

* * *

_Day One_

_I don’t know how to do this, since there’s no linear time to track in time travel. According to the news in this time, it is September 6th, 2005, which is two months after my target goal. I’m going to get better at tuning the device, or maybe change the tuning on the device all together. I have a plan, anyway, and it’s going to involve jumping around in the timeline._

_Step one is going to give myself access to SHIELD records and give myself an identity that isn’t Elizabeth Fitz-Simmons, Future Girl, that way I can track Grant’s movements, and hope to catch him going about his day._

_I’m also going to need money, so for that, I know I’m going to open an account with what I have on me, more than enough to earn interest and grow into something useable. I want to build a life with him when we return so that starts with a little nest egg. Also, I suspect I’m going to need transportation money and lodging, travel things._

_The main issue, though, is going to be getting access to the SHIELD network in the first place. The Lighthouse isn’t connected currently so I’ll have to go somewhere that is. I doubt the Playground will work, and I’m not hiking through the mountains again to get there. I could try the Academy, pose as a student, or as a very young agent at the Hub. I’m going to try the Academy first, less security there, less secrets._

_That does mean I could run into you or Mum, so if you remember a girl with your daughter’s face, sorry about that. I’m not going to introduce myself as Fitz-Simmons, it’ll be fine. Although, you aren’t married in 2005 so who would know? Still, better safe than sorry. Elizabeth is common enough, and they don’t need to know it’s after Nan Elsbeth. Just to annoy you, I’d go by Ward but I don’t want to draw more attention to myself. Not sure what to do there yet._

_I’m staying in the house at River’s End, for now, making this into my home base of sorts. I don’t want to change anything in the Lighthouse, but this house doesn’t mean anything to any of us. I wish it had. I wish it had been home, instead of a false presentation of what everyone expected from us. It’s so weird sleeping here in a house that isn’t home to me but everyone has always thought it was. It’s hard to separate that from the building, even though the house is not at fault. I know you didn’t choose to raise me in such an odd way, forgoing a home in England and retiring to work at a civilian lab and hospital in order to keep me safe, keep everyone safe. I’m sorry you and Mum didn’t get that civilian life. I want that, though, with him, and if I can pull this off, it’ll be amazing. It’ll be a story worth telling my kids, and they’ll growing up that their parents would do anything for those they love, and that they can too. And they’ll be right._

* * *

_Day Two_

_I woke up in a cold room this morning without Grant, and I expected it to make me sad, make me angry. It already feels impossible. How am I supposed to fix this? I suppose I never should have left him, never should have let him leave, but I can’t fix that. I can’t go back. I can only go forward from here. So, instead of making me sad, making me angry, it’s only made me determined._

_I know you hate him. I know he betrayed you, and hurt you in unforgiveable ways. I know he probably deserves it, but I also know that there’s good in him, Dad, and I will convince him that it’s there. And hopefully, I can convince you too._

_I’m going to take this one day at a time._

_Today, I’m going to create a fake ID and open a checking account. Then, I’ll figure out how I’m going to make it to the Academy. I’ve never been, and I’m actually really excited about that. I’ve heard a lot of stories of your time at the Academy, and I can’t believe that I get to see them, see where they happened. Even if I fail, which I won’t, there will be at least that adventure._

* * *

_Day Four_

_Sorry, Dad, I forgot to write yesterday. I’ve been on a series of sketchy buses on the way to the Academy, and I didn’t feel comfortable pulling out this journal to write to you. Yesterday, I made the fake ID, thanks to the skills that Aunt Daisy taught me (don’t get mad at her for that, you’ve all taught me some questionable skills. You don’t even want to k\now what Uncle Hunter taught me), so say hello to Elizabeth Leonard, who has a checking account set in trust for her daughter, Elizabeth Fitz-Simmons. I’m certain that this is against the rules of time travel, but ehh. I’m playing by my own rules now._

_I’m just very tired already. I know it’s going to be a process. It took two weeks to get back to River’s End when I landed with Grant the first time because we were stuck with technology and transportation from 2005. I’m coming across the same issue now, 2005 is a real hindrance for me. Fuck the past, though._

_I’m not sorry about the language._

_Fuck the past._

_But, hopefully, at the end of this, I’ll never have to come back to this fucking year ever again, and I can forget 2005 and its stupid technology. Grant Ward is lucky to have me, you know._

* * *

_Day Five_

_The Academy should be ashamed of its lax security. I could be a threat but because I look like a student, I can just walk right onto campus. Truly pathetic. No wonder SHIELD fell._

_That’s not true, I’m sorry for saying that. I’m a little cranky. An entire day on the bus surrounded by sweaty, cranky strangers will do that to you. I got a motel room this afternoon and I’m going to take the world’s longest shower when I’m done writing to you. I used to think there was nothing worse than a long car ride, but my time with Grant in that truck was so beautiful and enlightening that that can’t possibly be true. And my time on that bus was so horrendous and nerve-wracking that I know I was wrong. There are not many times I will openly admit that I was wrong, so enjoy this while you can, Dad._

_I was really wrong._

_Don’t ever let me get on a bus again. Ever._

_Anyway, back to the matter at hand, the Academy. It was actually very pretty, and I loved seeing all of the SHIELD agents before they were agents. I stopped into a couple seminars to really sell that I’m a student there, and they were fascinating. I think I even saw the back of your head in one, sitting far across the way from Mum. I almost intentionally met you just to see your face, to see you in person, to hear your voice, and see the way your eyes sparkled before you were ravaged and overtaken by trauma. I want to know what Leopold Fitz and Jemma Simmons were like before they were Agents of SHIELD._

_I snuck into a computer lab, and essentially hacked into the SHIELD server directly and made myself a secret admin in order to print myself a badge for any future SHIELD interactions._

_I deemed myself Agent Elizabeth Leonard._

_In case you hear of me on my adventures, that’s me._

_I’ll try to keep a low profile, but I’m not known for subtlety._

_I get that from you, Mr. Grand Gesture._

_If anything, all of this is your fault._

_The badge will let me into the Hub, and from there, I can track Grant’s movements inside of SHIELD and see if I can head him off._

_I’m going to shower and nap now, Dad. I love you._

* * *

_Day Seven_

_I narrowly missed literally running into you today. I was distracted, trying to get the tablet I’d nicked from the lab to accept my credentials, and you were distracted, trying to get Mum to agree with you on something, and we very nearly collided. I managed to pull up first and let you pass._

_You were so young, Dad._

_God, you were so young._

_I can’t believe you were that young, fresh-faced and innocent. You hadn’t been dropped into the ocean. You hadn’t been betrayed. You hadn’t been hurt, and hunted. The Framework hadn’t happened. You were so young, and so wide-eyed, and so naïve._

_I hope that if I change the past, maybe you’ll be haunted a little less._

* * *

_Day Eleven_

_Couple things happened._

_I missed Grant at the Academy by two days. Bullshit. But I know he’s headed to the Hub so I can head there myself. It just seems like I’m reaching out and I’m so close to actually making it and he’s pulled from my reach just as I can close my hand on his jacket, you know? He’s smoke, or a slippery fish or something. I’m really tired._

_I haven’t slept very well in, well, a while. It’s hard to sleep, and when I do manage to sleep, I have nightmares. It’s really weird, not having dreams for twenty plus years and then all of a sudden being haunted with them. They’re never the same, either. I’m reaching for Grant, or I’m running away from something, or I’m lost in the woods. There’s an element of danger, drowning or guns or feral dogs. And I always wake up alone._

_That’s what hurts the worst about all of this. I’m alone all the time, Dad._

_I’m not used to this. Even when I was growing up, if you and Mum weren’t around, I still had the agents to be around. I was raised by a village, and I never learned how to be alone. I never learned what being lonely actually was._

_And now that I am, I have no idea what to do with myself._

_I’ve just been puttering around campus, honestly._

_I fell in love with the Academy, which is stupid because I never wanted to be a part of SHIELD, but I wanted to go to the Academy. You used to tell me such wonderful stories about it, love stories and adventure stories. How could I do anything but love it?_

_I’ve always loved learning, you know. Languages. Skills. Random useless facts._

_I know that a crocodile actually cannot move its tongue and cannot chew, but instead, its digestive juices are so strong that it can digest a steel nail._

_How cool is that!_

_I would love to be able to digest a steel nail without a problem._

_That would be a neat party trick._

_I’m stalling._

_I’ve noticed I have the same stalling techniques that Mum does, talking around the problem, hoping that if we’re positive enough, it’ll just go away. It doesn’t. It’s a terrible coping mechanism. I’m sure you know that._

_I did something stupid. Of course, I did. I ran into a guy on the way out of a lecture, and he asked me a question, and something ended up at a party for the students. My understanding of engineering and science is literally decades past what these people understand. What I accept as basic tenants and truths of sciences, these kids won’t discover for literal decades._

_I had a couple drinks, and while I’m not a lightweight, apparently that does make me a little chatty and, well, I got talking with some kind named Lincoln or London or something, and I accidentally mentioned that he just needed to reverse the polarity in his power source and allow it to cycle through the device as a means of recycling the energy and it should burn cleaner than anything on this planet or in the solar system._

_You know, stupid things that come out of my mouth._

_I have no filter, or thought process._

_He asked how I knew what could possibly be on other planets, and I panicked and said because my dad’s an astronaut, and then I ran out of the party because I can’t be trusted._

_Secrets are hard._

* * *

_Day Twelve_

_As much as I adore the Academy and wish I could stay here forever surrounded by geniuses and learning, that’s not what I’m here for. There’s a transport leaving for the Hub in an hour that I’ve booked myself on. It’s so bizarre, being able to go anywhere and do anything just because I want to. Although, that’s kind of what my childhood was. With you and Mum gone so often, it was up to agents to babysit me, and lord knows that most of them were not experienced enough to take care of me correctly. They tried, but they often got distracted and it was so easy to just slip away. I knew the Lighthouse in and out by the time I was eight years old. I don’t know if you know this but there’s actually a crawl space that connects the lab to the upper level storage warehouse. I’m positive the agents watching me never told you this but one time I crawled in there and hid from them for six hours. I can’t fit in there anymore, not with Nan’s hips, but I was about ten at the time and could fit anywhere I wanted. I fell asleep in the crawl space and finally emerged when they sounded an alarm for everyone to look for me. They made me promise not to say anything to you guys._

_Woops._

_But now, all I need is a badge and the correct authorization in the system to get where I want to go. It makes sense how someone like a Hydra agent made it into SHIELD ranks and used their position to then assimilate more members until they were everywhere. It’s a flaw in the SHIELD defenses, one that I can exploit for my own purposes because of hindsight._

_Sorry._

_It pays to be a time traveler from the future._

_It’s also freeing to go where I please and not have to answer to anyone about that what I’m doing or where I’m going. I could absolutely settle down with some random SHIELD agent and no one would know. I’d never do that to you, or Mum, and I’d miss you far too much, but I could. I could find Grant today, steal him away, and never come back. I’d leave this journal for you to find or have it delivered, and I’d settle down with him in a nice lakefront property where we’d raise kids and make the community a little bright every day. I could do that._

_How weird is free will. How daunting and how exhilarating._

* * *

_Day Thirteen_

_In some twisted plot point, I saw Grant today at the Hub, but Garrett was with him. I tried waiting for him outside of the room but he didn’t come out._

_I’m getting really tired._

_Two weeks is a lot longer that I’ve ever thought it was. Especially since before this Grant and I traveled for almost two weeks from Colorado to New York. I haven’t really rested and had a normal day in a month. I don’t know if there’s anything left that’s normal. If I come back empty-handed, my heart will be haunted by Grant Ward forever._

_“The one that got away,” and all that nonsense._

_He really would be._

_I know you and Mum kind of hated each other when you met and you had that slow burn love where you grew into each other and learned to love each other over years. I love that._

_But love Grant feels less of an oak tree growing stronger every day and more of a wildfire spreading out of control. Maybe it will burn itself out. Maybe I will._

_Only one way to find out._

* * *

There were pages missing from the journal, either from entries ripped out or she’d needed the paper; it was hard to tell.

* * *

_Hey Dad,_

_It’s been a couple days, and I kind of lost track of what I was doing and where I was. Someone must’ve caught on to what’s going on, or that there’s an unauthorized user in the system doing unusual and unauthorized things. I suppose it is a bit suspicious, but they keep trying to lock me out. What they don’t realize is that I made myself an administrator using another account and I can just undo whatever they do to my access. I must be really frustrating to whoever suspects me._

_I’ve had years of practice, as you know. My years growing up and being a pain in the ass really taught me a thing or two about sneaking around without detection and misdirection._

_Thanks for that; I’d make a really good spy if I wanted to be a spy._

_I just want to learn languages and teach them and build cool shit, you know? I want to live without fear, and just enjoy the day to day. I know that I will always be a target, that any remaining Hydra fucks might realize that I’m a walking SHIELD encyclopedia and weak link. I can hold my own, of course, because of what you and Mum and everyone who raised me has taught me, but I’ll never be Aunt Bobbi, you know? I’m not an actual agent, even if I have credentials. Multiple sets now, under multiple identities._

_At least if I pull this off, I’ll have Grant to protect me, you know? I’ve always had the whole of SHIELD to protect me, to literally shield me from the dangers of the world. It's weird to be out here with just me to keep me safe._

_It’s a little terrifying now that I’m thinking about it._

_Have I made a mistake?_

_If I do all of this, and Hydra’s hold on Grant is too strong..._

_I don’t know what I’m doing, Dad._

* * *

_This is what giving up feels like, I guess. I’m coming home, Dad. I’m sorry._


	2. Chapter 2

Bitty  had given up. That was the only way to put it. Every time she tried to get to Grant, he slipped away, trying to catch smoke with her bare hands. 

She returned back to the little house that wasn’t her childhood home in River’s End, and sat on the porch. Tired. 

She was going to go back into the Lighthouse, admit defeat, and tell her parents they were right. God, they would be so smug after. They’d hide it, console her, tell her that they were proud of her for trying, but somewhere, below that kind surface, her dad would be absolutely thriving, happy that his daughter was home safe, away from Grant. 

She stood, and used the spare key hidden in the fake potted plant to let herself into the house.

There was a box sitting on the coffee table,  quietly waiting for her to return to the present, her present, his future, whatever. It was no bigger than a shoebox, and there was a card stuck to the top with her name written carefully on the envelope. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but she opened it anyway.

_ Bitty, _

_ I found these from our trip. Thought you’d want them. _

_ Grant _

Her hands shook as she opened the box. Inside, Grant had set her copy of Master of the Mountain alongside of her copy of Teen Vogue, and a stack of photos she’d never seen before. Then, she remembered the camera she’d glanced at in the truck. He’d taken pictures of the countryside all across the country, but she hadn’t realized how many he had taken. The first, though, was from outside their camp in Colorado, Bitty sitting with her head turned away from him, hair alight in the sunset. She flipped through, unable to breathe. 

There was one of Bitty in Chicago, standing before the Bean, standing just in front of Grant, who you could only see in the reflection of the Bean, his face obscured by the camera.

There was only one of the both of them, which a stranger had taken at the Volkswagen Beetle Spider in Iowa , Bitty’s head tipped back to look up at Grant, and he was smiling radiantly. If she could, she’d take this Grant right from the frame, and live happily ever after. 

The last photo in the stack was from their hotel room in Rochester, Bitty framed on the bed, asleep in her clothes with Buddy tucked up against her. She can see Grant in the mirror beside the bed, barely, face hidden again, shirtless with a towel slung low around his hips. 

There, their last few hours together, framed, immortalized. He wrote a note on the back.

_ Bits, I don’t know when you’ll get this, or if you ever will. I’ve tried finding you, but I’m starting to think you don’t exist. If it weren’t for these pictures, I’d think that you were a figment of my imagination, some fever dream brought on by isolation. You were too good to be true. I loved you, Elizabeth Fitz-Simmons, even if you weren’t real. At least, I’ll have these photos to remember you. _

_ Grant _

_ If you do exist, meet me at the end of the pier on my birthday. _

Bitty’s heart jolted at that. He wanted her to find him. She didn’t know what year he’d left these for her, but she had a time machine on her person. She could, and would search every year until she found him. She’d start in 2006 and try every year afterwards. She wasn’t going to give up. 

“I love you,” she said to the stale, open air, the box, the photos. “I haven’t given up yet. I’m coming for you, Grant.”

* * *

2006 was a bust, probably because Grant was in the Academy and couldn’t get away to wait for her. She sat at the pier until it was too cold, and then moved to a café where she could see the pier. He didn’t show up, but Bitty got to know the waitress, a beautiful woman named Tara with silky golden hair, who brought Bitty large cups of rich hot tea and commented on her accent with a flirty grin.

“I swear you look so familiar,” Tara said.

“I have one of those faces.”

“It’s a good face,” she said, and gave her a free croissant.

* * *

2007, nothing.

She looked over her box from Grant for some kind of clue as to when he’d left the box. There were a lot of birthdays between when she’d left him and when he died. Of course, with a time machine, eleven years took under two weeks to get through. But he hadn’t dated anything. The photos were dated for the days they were taken, a nice memento of their time together, but it didn’t note when they were developed. And even if they were dated that way, that didn’t mean he took the box to the house for her right away. It would at least narrow it down, though.

It was bitterly cold outside, the snow thick coming off the lake, so Bitty set up in the café again, without Tara this time, and took out her journal.

* * *

_January 7th, 2007_

_I want to tell you a story, Dad, because it occurred to me that I grew up hearing how amazing Mum is, and how brave you are, and I’ve never told you about Grant Ward. I know you know him as Agent Ward, a double agent who hurt and betrayed you. I’m going to tell you about my Grant, before Hydra, before SHIELD, before everything that made him who you hate._

_So, keep an open mind, because I love you, and I hope you trust me with this._

_Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a lighthouse with her parents and all of her cousins, aunts, and uncles. She was a well-loved girl who wanted to see the world. Even when the world was harsh and left her scarred, all this little girl wanted was to explore. One day, even though she was loved and wanted at the lighthouse, she ran away. She wanted to help, you see, so she ran, far and fast, and ended up far from home where she didn’t know anyone and wasn’t sure how to get home._

_Then, in the middle of the mountains, scared and alone, she met the prince. This prince was different than anyone she’d met, especially other princes. The prince, to anyone else, would look like a beast, rough and sharp around the edges, unkempt and uncouth. But the prince held out a hand to our hero, and helped her up out of the brambles. He made her laugh, and smiled at her like she mattered._

_You see, the little girl had known love since she was born, doted on and adored by wonderful parents who loved each other just as deeply. When she met the prince, and saw how lonely he was, how could she not share that with him? When she sat with the prince, she saw the little boy who just wanted to feel loved the way she had. He’d been hurt, and scared since he was born, and there was a deep sadness that the little girl wanted to cure in him. The little girl was deeply curious about this prince, thorny and quiet, and vowed to get to know him and to show him how good being loved could be._

_The prince promised to escort her back to the lighthouse, to keep her safe from the dangerous beasts of the land._

_Of course, I know what you’re thinking, he was a beast himself. How could she trust him? He could be playing her, using her, tricking her. Historically, princes that look like beasts act like beasts. But he wasn’t monstrous, he wasn’t mean. When he touched her, it was with all the gentleness in the world. When he looked at her, it was with admiration and awe._

_The prince was a perfect gentleman for our hero, just like she was taught he should be. Even though the little girl was told she was too much too fast, the prince never minded. He was kind and courteous. When the little girl got hurt on the mountain, he carried her to safety. When she had nightmares, he soothed her fears and let her hold onto him. When she asked him questions, he answered them honestly. He thought she was brilliant, which she was, and asked her about her interests and let her talk about them for hours._

_No matter what he would go on to do, the prince in that moment with her was exactly what she was told a prince should be._

_The prince and the little girl saw the world at their leisure, stopping in small towns and big cities. The prince let the little girl choose where they went and when they stopped, and the little girl wanted to see everything. There was a park built to mimic Dungeons & Dragons, and a museum of signs. She saw the world’s largest ball of paint, and a replica of Stonehenge built out of cars. It surprised and delighted her, the world was so weird when it wasn’t trying to kill her. And for once, the world didn’t know she had left the lighthouse. _

_Somewhere along the way, a little bit at a time, the little girl fell in love with him. She knew what love felt like, had always known thanks to the love of her family. When she looked at him, when she touched him, when she could just sit with him, she felt it._

_He kissed her when he left her at the lighthouse, and promised to see her again. And because our little hero loved him, she swore to herself that she would, no matter what divided them. Because that’s the moral of the story, that’s what she had always been taught. Her parents did anything for love, to save each other._

_So would she._

_The end._

_I hope you understand, Dad._

* * *

In 2008, Bitty tried appearing on January 6 th and waiting at the pier at midnight when it passed into Grant’s birthday. It was incredibly cold, but Ontario looked beautiful in the dark winter night.

“Hey,” she said to it, dipping her fingertips into the frigid waters at the shore. “You won’t remember me yet, but it’s good to see you, old friend.”

The lake lapped at her fingers as if welcoming her.

“If a really handsome man in a leather jacket comes by, take care of him for me, okay. He’s a good man.”

But he still didn’t show.

* * *

Grant didn’t show up in 2009, 2010, or 2011.

In 2012, Bitty almost gave up. She was running out of years. How long did it take for Grant to develop the photos, and figure out how to get them to her? How long did it take for him to miss her?

Next year, Grant Ward would have joined her parents on Coulson’s team. 

Maybe he came to realize who she was when he met Fitzsimmons on the Bus, a Scotsman named Leo who was an engineer and an English woman named Jemma who was a biochemist. If he remembered her at all, he’d see her in their faces, their mannerisms. 

Plus, she was just getting fucking bored. She’d been doing nothing for weeks, without learning or doing anything. In between days, she adjusted her design for the time machine, making it smaller, more efficient, and prototyped out a design that would carry two people instead of just one. 

“Please, Grant,” she said into the winter’s wind blowing off the lake. “Please find me before its too late.”

He didn’t show up.

* * *

_January 7th, 2012_

_We are less than a year from you meeting Grant, and I’m terrified of what that means. I don’t want to run into you, and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to pull Grant away from Hydra before its too late. There has to be away to get him away from that. I know it._

_If you remember running into me in the past, I’m trying my best._

_Next year, we’ve officially heading towards Grant’s death, and I need to stop that. I refuse to let him die, not like that, not without seeing how good he can be._

* * *

Bitty booked a hotel room and slept terribly, falling immediately.

She opens her eyes and she’s in an unfamiliar room, quiet and bleak. When she stands, the world flashes white and then settles too dark for her to see any thing around her. She reaches out ahead of her to catch herself on anything, taking tiny steps to move her towards the door she had seen. 

“Bitty,” a voice calls from outside, familiar and warm. She grasps the door handle finally and pulls open the door to reveal Lake Ontario spreading out in front of her, bright and sparkling in the summer heat. Grant is there, just as she remembers him, grinning as he swings Evelyn around to her shrieking delight. As she steps towards them, she sees her parents, Brennan, Daisy, all of her SHIELD family reaching towards her.

“Wait,” she says and her voice isn’t right, doesn’t come out as strong as she wants it to. “I want both.”

“Come home,” her mum says.

“Mummy, come play!” Evelyn calls.

“Can’t I do both?”

“Bitty,” Grant says, “come here.”

“Don’t make me choose.”

“I won’t,” he says, voice like honey against a sore throat.

“He’ll hurt you,” her dad says.

“He won’t,” she answers.

“She can have both,” Grant says. “Don’t let her go.”

“Please, Daddy,” she says, but no sound comes out. Her words won’t become real.

“Fight for us, Bitty,” Grant urges, and she tries but she can’t speak.

“Convince us,” her dad says, and she tries but she can’t speak.

She tries, and tries, but her family gives up and walks away. Grant picks up their daughter and walks away in the opposite direction. She sinks to her knees, watching them go and when she tries to cry, no sound comes out.

She woke up screaming, and there was no one there to soothe her.

* * *

She dragged herself to the pier on January 7 th , 2013, her hair up in the sloppiest bun she’d ever worn, clothes days old and circles dark below her eyes. The weather, blessedly, was warmer than it had been, and she didn’t have to wrap her scarf around her to burrow in against the wind.

At the café, she asked after Grant but as usual, there had been no sign of him that any of the cashiers could remember.

“The largest black tea you can make, please, then,” she said, “and a croissant.”

“Now I know I’ve seen your face here before,” Tara said coming around from the kitchen, wearing an apron covered in flour.

“Yeah,” she replied, “now you have.”

Time travel made everything weird, out of order.

“You look fantastic, girl! What is your secret?”

Time __ travel, she thought.

“I moisturize,” she answered.

“You have got to tell me what type of moisturizer, because you look  _ amazing _ .”

“I’ll get you the brand name.”

Tara grinned and dipped back into the kitchen as one of the baristas passed over her hot tea with a smile.

“Thank you.”

She dropped an extra tip into the jar and left the café to head back to the pier. The sun was just peaking up over the world, the sky just starting to lighten. There was a bench at the end of the pier which was cold underneath her, but she sat with her second journal, this one her work notebook and her tea, sipping at it slowly while the sun rose.

She sketched out an idea for what she would consider a teleportation machine, using the design of the time machine as a basis. When she got back to her time, she’d run it by her father. Clearly, the personal time machine she’d built had a teleportation function, or defect. Once she repaired it, it really only shifted her in time. It would have saved her a lot of time and effort, and money, if she’d figured out how to enhance the function instead of eliminate it, but still. Plus, she worked on a cleaner engine for it, because there was no use in creating something that wasn’t going to better the planet’s health, and if not better it, not damage it.

She lost herself in the design, and while her fingertips started to ache again from the cold, she couldn’t bring herself out of it to relocate. There was a chance she would miss him if she left for some place warmer, and besides, the sun was up now and starting to warm her a little. 

It was enough. She’d run a nice warm bath at the hotel and soak in it that night if he didn’t show this year. She could get some nice bubble bath, lavender scented, or a bath bomb. Those were always good to watch float around, leaving colors in their wake, and they didn’t leave behind the problematic bubbles she’d always been bothered by. 

It would, of course, be better with Grant there, but she’d take a solo bath soak just to relax. She was wearing herself thin with this mission, but she also couldn’t go home empty handed.

There was no way she was going to walk back into the Lighthouse with her tail between her legs and tell her dad that he was  _ right _ .

“Holy shit,” she heard, half in a daze of sketching in spirals while she thought, and when she turned, there, bundled in a soft-looking pea coat, was Grant Ward. “You’re here.”

She stood, dropping everything, and  ran back down the pier to him. He was solid as she launched herself into him, catching her without a problem, strong arms coming around her, letting her burrow into him.

“You’re so cold,” he commented.

“Worth it,” she muttered into his jacket. “Didn’t want to miss you.”

“I’m here now.”

“Good.”

“Let me look at you,” he said, and he untucked her head from his chest, hands cradling her jaw perfectly. His hands were warm against her chilled skin, thumbs stroking over her cheeks slowly. “You haven’t aged a single day.”

“You look pretty good yourself,” she said, reaching up to push hair away from his face. There were lines on his face that hadn’t been there before, and she ran her fingers over his dark stubble. 

“Let’s get you out of the cold,” he said, but he didn’t move, still clutching onto her. “I can’t believe you’re real.”

“Thanks for remembering me,” she replied.

“How could I ever forget you?”

She couldn’t stop herself from standing on her toes to kiss him, his mouth hot against hers. For her, it had been weeks. For Grant, it had been almost 10 years and he kissed her like a starving man. He gripped the front of her jacket and held her against him, his tongue slipping easily into her mouth, leaning her back a little with his effort. 

“Happy birthday,” she said into the kiss.

“Come back to my hotel,” he said, voice rough, his hands moving to slide into her hair to keep her close. “I want to get you alone.”

“Let me get my stuff.” 

When she stepped away, he followed. 

“I’m not letting you go,” he said as explanation.

“I don’t want you to,” she replied. “I’ve been looking for you forever.”

She took his hand to anchor them together and led the way down the pier to where she’d left her stuff, her tea abandoned and empty on the bench. 

“You could have left me your phone number, you know, instead of being a weirdo,” she said lightly. “Would have been easier.”

“More dramatic this way,” he said with a laugh, pulling her back to him for a kiss. “Although, I wasn’t sure you have cell phones still in 2060 or whatever.”

She laughed this time. 

“2040s but sure.”

He was quiet as she put her journals back into her bag and picked up her discarded tea cup. 

“I have so many questions, but I guess those should wait until we’re not in public talking about, you know, this.”

He gestured to her entire body with his free hand.

“Can I at least get you naked before I answer any questions?”

Grant laughed and ducked his head down to kiss her again while they walked. 

“I will never say no to getting you naked, Bitty.”

She couldn’t believe how nice it was to just hear her name on his tongue again. 

Together, they walked off the pier and Grant tugged her towards the parking lot. She followed to a sleek black SUV which she looked at quizzically.

“Perks of being a SHIELD agent,” he said to her look, “is that I can get a rental car anywhere without explanation.”

“I imagine black SUVs are expected.”

“I tried to rent an old beat-up truck for nostalgia but they said this is the government agency special,” he replied. 

“They’re supposed to be undercover, but when three or four black SUVs pull up, you know shit it going down.”

“Better evacuate when you see a couple of them pull up, something is about to blow the fuck up.”

She laughed and climbed into the car. Without meaning to, she checked the backseat.

“I’m not hiding anyone back there,” he offered.

“Yeah, I know,  it’s just, I keep expecting my parents to appear and yell at me wherever I go. I didn’t exactly leave home on good terms with them, and my dad has a stubborn streak as long as I do, so I keep looking for them.”

“I haven’t seen them,” he said, “not as you know them at least .”

There was a quiet acceptance to how he spoke about it. 

“You know,” she said softly, “I am sorry about everything. I didn’t mean for everything to turn out this way.”

“I know,” he replied. 

His hotel wasn’t far, and was much nicer than any place that Bitty had stayed at in the past few weeks. 

“Is this also a government agency special?” she asked, following him across the marbled lobby to an elevator.

“It’s my birthday,” he said with a shrug. “I deserve something nice.”

“So birthday sex with me?”

“Oh, that’s the real present,” he replied, stepping into line to the check-in desk. “But we’ve fucked in barely hygienic motels off the highway. I figured we can try a high-end, classy hotel for once.”

“Thoughtful,” she said.

“Selfish ,” he corrected. “This is entirely for my own benefit.”

“I’m okay with that.”

At the front desk, Grant passed over a credit card  and a charming smile that  still didn’t entirely meet his eyes.

“You still cannot fake smile to save your life,” she commented as the  clerk  took his ID to be photocopied. 

“Yes, I can,” he said, putting on another smile for her. She shook her head at him.

“When you smile at me, I can see it in your eyes. But when  you smiled at that clerk,  there was no sincer i ty to it. ”

He rolled his eyes and turned back to the clerk as she came back.

“Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Ward, you’re all set.”

She passed two keys over to him with a smile.

“Thank you.”

“Enjoy your stay!”

Bitty led them over to the elevators,  and  hit the up button  to take them upstairs before making a face at Grant.

“Mr. Ward,” she said.

“Mrs. Ward,” he teased back , leaning in to kiss her. “I do like the sound of that.”

“We already agreed, we’re hyphenating.”

“It’s weirder now that I know your parents, though. ”

“I refuse to give up my last name,” she said. “So it’s either hyphenated or nothing.”

He rolled his eyes at her.

“Somehow, all this time, I forgot how incredibly stubborn you are.”

“How could you possibly? It’s my main character  flaw.”

He followed her into the elevator and, as they were thankfully alone, pressed her into the wall. He pressed the  floor button and kissed her, hands sliding up into her unzipped coat. 

His hands felt so good  even through her shirt, warm and familiar .

“I never thought I’d actually see you again,” Grant said, breaking the kiss as the elevator  came to the ir floor. “I thought it was a long shot leaving that message for you.”

“I’d follow you anywhere,” she said. He led her  off the elevator and held her hand to keep her close,  all the way to their  room. He  opened the door and let her  inside first. The room was beautiful,  but all  she could focus on was getting Grant closer.

“Close the door and come here,” she said, pushing her coat off  and tossing it onto the dresser.  She toed out of her shoes, and ducked down for a moment to strip away her socks, left on the ground by her shoes without a thought. “I need you right up close.”

Grant did the same , jacket, shoes, then socks, and stepped back into her space.

“I’m going to kiss you, and  if you’ll let me, I don’t want to stop.”

“Please, don’t stop,” she said under her breath.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her, lips slotted together  perfectly.  She  never wanted to stop, addicted to his touch and  kiss. 

He pushed at her  sweater  and it fell to the ground behind her. She  tugged the buttons on his shirt one at a time,  running her palms down his chest as she went,  memorizing the way his muscles felt and moved beneath h er hands .

“I missed you,” Grant said. “ No one measured up  to you.”

“Show me how much,” she urged, finally managing to get his shirt open and off his shoulders where it fell to the ground. He’d been stunning before, but Bitty  could get lost in the sculpted muscle on display now. When Grant grew up, he grew up in all the right places.

He walked  her backwards,  pushing her shirt up and over her head. They had gotten good at this  during their road trip, easily knowing how to undress the other, and despite the distance, they still fell into the easy steps to get each other naked.

Her shirt joined the growing pile of clothes, and then his pants, belt and all. He laid her out on the bed and peeled her jeans off, kissing her chest and stomach as he worked.

“ You’re so beautiful. I  forgot. I don’t know how I forgot.”

He  kissed the scar between her ribs, soft and sweet as anything, reverential. 

“Baby, come up here,” she said.

He nipped at  her jaw and then connected their mouths again for a  slow, deep kiss. She buried her hands into his hair, happy to have him this close again.

“Take off your clothes, Grant,” she said into his kiss.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He sat  up long enough to get rid of his underwear. His erection swung free,  just as she remembered, where he lacked in girth, he made up in length.

“Fuck, I can’t wait to have you inside me again,” she breathed, shuffling up the bed towards the pillows. Grant used that as opportunity to pull her panties off at the same time, pulling them in the opposite direction as she moved and tossing them over his shoulder. Now, only her standard, unsexy t-shirt bra stood between them. She made quick work of it and laid back, happy to finally be free and bared to him once more. 

“I’ve thought about you every day for years, Bits.  If you were happy. If you’d found someone to love you. What you’d look like as you aged.”

He traced the outline of her body with soft fingertips. She lay beneath him, watching his face.

“ I hadn’t imagined you’d look exactly how I remember you, same scars, same smooth skin.”

He brushed  over her hip and leaned in to kiss her just as his finger  teased at her , barely there and gone again.

“Tease,” she playfully accused.  He nipped her jaw in response. 

“ Keep it up,” he warned,  squeezing  her hip. 

“Or what?”

“ I won’t let you come for a long time,”  he challenged. 

“ Oh no,” Bitty chirped back . “Getting to be with you for longer,  with you inside of me, what a  _ punishment _ .”

He rolled his eyes.

“You’re a little shit, you know that.”

“I do,” she agreed.

He  kissed her lips once and then started a trail down her chest, leaving two quick kisses on her peaked nipples. A shiver ran through her, but he continued regardless. His kisses left a  line down the center of her chest, over her scar, to her navel, and he paused,  settling between her legs . 

“ Do you want me to?” he asked, gesturing  with his chin.

“As if that’s a real question.”

“Consent is important,” Grant argued.

“It is, you’re right.  I absolutely want you to.”

“Good,” he said. She watched in  fascination as Grant kissed her thighs , gently spreading her legs further to fit between them, and then just when she was settling in, he started rubbing at her clit with his  middle finger slowly. She was already slick  just from kissing him, and his finger made easy circles against her. 

“Fuck,” she groaned out, dropping her head back against the pillows. “God, that feels good.”

“Does it?”

She rolled her eyes at him, earning her a small bite to her inner thigh.

“ Tell me what you want,”  Grant said, his pointer coming to join in making  lazy circles. Each brush against her clit sent a ripple of pleasure through her , and she tried not to make the most pornographic noises. He never discouraged  them or complained about them, but it was her own self-awareness that shut her up. Too much too fast, always. That could be the title of her autobiography someday.

“ For you not to be a tease,” she replied. He grinned and bit lightly into the same spot on her thigh drawing a sharp  gasp from her.

“Tell me what you want, Bitty.”

“ I  want your goddamn tongue on my clit,  _ Grant _ .”

He ducked his head down, and  licked  slowly against her clit . When she looked down at him, he winked at her , meeting her gaze. 

“Fuck,” she whined. She tipped her head back into the pillows, trying to remember how to breathe. “Fuck,  _ Grant _ .”

She’d somehow forgotten how good it felt to be with him, how good he was at this,  how wonderful  his body felt against hers. She ran her hand through his hair and gripped, not to guide him but to hold herself in that moment. 

Sneakily, Grant slipped his two fingers into her, pressing into her hole quickly, kissing and sucking at her clit at the same time. A squeaked-out moan slipped from her. 

“You’re a right bastard,”  she breathed out, but pushed her hand deeper into his hair .

He drew away just enough to look up at her , meeting her eyes again.

“ Do you want me to stop?”

“No, god, no.”

Grant’s eyes were sparkling, and his face was  alight with both  delight and happiness. 

“Good.”

Without another word, he went back to eating her out slowly,  fingers curling  into just the right spot as he slid them in and out of her. He took his time,  tongue tracing ever so gently in different shapes and patterns around her clit , the tingle of his beard ticking her most sensitive parts unfamiliar but not unwelcome .  She loved watching him, the way he enjoyed her even  if it wasn’t pleasuring him directly, the way he didn’t rush to get her off so he could get some relief himself, the flutter of his eyelashes against his cheeks. 

“ Fucking, Jesus, I missed this,” she managed, breath coming in short desperate pants the longer  they stayed like this. He was a tyrant, not letting up with his fingers or his tongue . Instead, he switched rhythms, his fingers moving faster against that  beautiful spot inside her and his tongue making easy swipes up and down directly against her aching clit.  She curled her toes against his back and moaned,  happy and free. She didn’t care if anyone could hear her, if the room next door knew that she was getting the best goddamn head ever.  She didn’t even care if they thought she was a porn star in the middle of a scene.

She opened her mouth, but whatever her brain was forming as words died and transformed into the deepest, most earnest cry, Grant using a third finger to stretch her wider, all three coming in direct contact with her g-spot, just enough for the crest of pleasure to break. There weren’t  intellible words that managed to make it out of her as she came, body bowing up into Grant’s mouth greedily, just sounds of want and need she hoped he could translate into what she wanted, which was for him to never stop. 

When she settled, Grant left  one  soft kiss directly on her clit, over-sensitive and  spent before kissing back up her body to her mouth, leaving a trail of her cum up her chest. 

“ You are so goddamn beautiful,” Grant muttered, kissing her over and over, holding himself up off of her . She ran her fingertips over the muscles in his arms, delighted to see them. 

“You got hotter as you got older,” she said. 

He laughed, and  wiped his face on the pillow to her left. 

“ You taste exactly how I remember,” he  murmured in her ear, a shiver running through her. 

“You want to find out what else  is the same?” she asked , wiggling her hips at him. 

“The fact that you have no refractory period shouldn’t surprise me still, but you certainly do continue to surprise me, Bitty.”

“ I mean, only if you want,” she said, playing at shy but Grant kissed her hot and filthy and she couldn’t keep up the façade with his mouth on hers like that. “I’m all yours when you want me.”

“I always want you,” Grant said . 

“Then, baby, come and take me.”

Grant covered her with his body, kissing her again, and again. 

“Mmm, hold on,” he said softly, and then the weight of his body was gone from hers. 

“Where -”

He rooted around in his bag he’d left by the door and tossed a box of condoms at her. It landed square on her chest.

“Impeccable aim, Agent Ward,” she commented.

“Maria Hill thought so,” he said.

“I – I actually don’t have a response for that. Are you saying you fucked Maria Hill at some point?”

He climbed back onto the bed and covered her again, kissing her scar and then between her breasts up to her mouth.

“Would you be jealous if I had?”

“Yeah, of you. Maria Hill is fucking hot.”

He laughed and nipped her jaw playfully.

“Is that all?”

“I don’t care who you slept with while I was gone, you know. You had a long life without me, and you never thought you’d see me again. I can’t expect you to remain celibate for that. So, you can fuck anyone you want.”

He kissed her again, softer, sweeter, a love letter  written in the brush of his lips against hers .

“None of them were you, no matter who I did or did not fuck. There was always this missing,” he said, and made his point by running his hand down her side from her shoulder to her hip. 

“You don’t have to try and butter me up, love,” she said. “I’m already naked.”

“It’s the truth, though. Sex is great, but sex with you is different. Being with you is different. I don’t, I don’t feel pressured to act a certain way or put up any front. I can just be with you. No hesitations, no strings, no worries.”

She dragged her hands through his hair slowly, pushing her fingers through the strands. 

“I want you to feel at home with me,” she said. He smiled.

“I already do.”

Kissing Grant always felt natural, like what she should always do, so she did that. When in doubt, she thought, hands moving to work at the box of condoms still on her chest.  She got one open and  shifted to sit up into his space .

“Come here,” she muttered, and  he stayed still as she rolled the condom down his length. 

“Fuck,” he groaned. She leaned it and kissed him to distract him.

“ You’re absolutely beautiful,” she said, “which I’m sure you’ve been told every day of your life because  _ holy shit _ , Grant, but I thought I’d tell you anyway  so you know.”

He laughed, resting his forehead on hers as she stroked  over his cock experimentally to make sure the condom was on. He caught her wrist and kissed her harder. 

“ Tease.”

“Thorough,” she corrected. 

He hummed , easing her back onto the bedspread again. 

“Are you going to  keep talking or do you want me to fuck you?”

“Oh, baby, I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. We can do both, and historically, we have.”

He rolled his eyes, and settled between her legs.

“You are absolutely your father’s daughter.”

“Don’t mention my dad when you’re  about to put your dick inside of me.”

He smirked as he caught her mouth with his again and said, “noted.”

Then, blessedly, he pressed into her, slowly at first with just the tip, and then before she could say anything, he slid the rest of his length inside of her. She gripped his arms and reminded herself to breathe, looking up at his face to distract herself. He was so extraordinarily beautiful, his dark eyes bright in the hotel lights. 

“Hey,” she said softly.

“What?” he whispered back.

“I love you.”

“I love you,” he replied, kissing along her jaw. He shifted his hips, and muffled a quiet noise in her neck. “God, you feel so good.”

Bitty traced a scar up Grant’s bicep to his shoulder, and then followed the curve of his collar to his neck. She was determined to memorize him, how his skin felt beneath her hands, how his body fit against hers. If this was the last moment she’d be with him, not that she was intending on letting him go but she was only half of this whole thing, then she was going to lock it away to come back to, crystal clear and infinite. She could live in this moment for the rest of her life. 

“Fuck, you’re beautiful, you know?” he murmured into her neck. “So perfect.”

She shifted her hips back against him just to hear that noise again.

“Come on, Grant,” she said, “show me what you’ve got.”

“Is that a challenge?” 

“Oh, baby, you know it absolutely is.”

He kept her gaze as he pulled out and then immediately rocked back into her. She tipped her head and whined.

“Is that what you’re looking for?”

“Yes, yes, please,” she said. 

Grant moved inside of her, pushing in deep and tortuously slow. She tried to lift her hips back against him again, but he caught her hips in one hand, and eased her back down onto the mattress.

“Easy,” he muttered. “I’ll give you what you want.”

“Could you get to it, then?”

He did a quick thrust and then slowly withdrew, keeping her still with just his hands and his gaze. Each time he moved, Bitty curled into him a little more, gripping whatever she could get her hands on, his hips, his arms, his neck. He kept her guessing, changing angles and speeds, his pace punishing on just the right side of absolutely delightful. 

“Fuck, you’re so good at this,” she moaned. 

“I had some practice.”

“Practice does make perfect,” she agreed. “We were getting pretty good at it last time.”

“We were,” he said, ducking his head to scrape his teeth along the pulse in her throat. “ We’re pretty good at it now.”

She wanted to make a smart reply about how good they’d be in X amount of years, but her brain fritzed out as he thrust in at just the right angle, and her words turned to liquid filth. 

“Right there, baby,” she moaned, head tipped back as she tried to push back against Grant in return, but he held her tight in place. “Fuck, please, right there.”

He hit that spot over and over, lighting sparks throughout her body but not enough to light the bonfire explosion of an orgasm.

“Come here,” he said, and he sat back on his knees, lifting her up into his lap. She clutched onto him as he held her aloft, his arms tucked under her thighs while he fucked up into her. She gave up any notion of being able to control the noises she made, filthy and pornographic, bordering on inhuman. “God, that’s so good, baby. So good.”

He kissed down her neck, over her collarbone, wherever he could reach, taking a peaked nipple into his mouth and scraping his teeth over it. 

“Fuck, Grant, I’m really close,” she muttered, hands sliding up into his hair and gripping just to keep herself grounded. Her toes curled against where they’re pressed into Grant’s thighs, and she wiggled them just for old  times' sake, for nostalgia. “Feels so good. You make me feel so good.”

Her voice was practically gone, just husky whispers into Grant’s ear. He caught her mouth against his own, and then when they broke apart, she rested her forehead against his to keep his eyes, breathing in each other’s space. 

“Come for me, baby,” he said, shifting her the smallest bit so he was slamming directly into her g-spot again. There was this soft look of admiration on his face that she adored, him watching her moan because of what he was doing to her, watching her take the pleasure he gave to her. “You know you want it. Be a good girl, come for me.”

She almost told him to make her, except that her orgasm snuck up through her and she couldn’t say anything except to gasp, gripping whatever she could to anchor her to reality. For a moment, a split second, when she came, she didn’t feel like a person, just a  _ feeling _ , just sensation, the incredible pleasure that coursed through her was all there was. She didn’t have a past, or mistakes, or scars, or trauma. There weren’t expectations, or goals, or dreams. There was just her, and him, and this moment, wrapped around each other, and it could last forever. She wanted it to, this blissful blank moment. 

Grant found his peak a few moments later, gasping and moaning into her neck, his body solid against hers. After a moment, he eased her off of his cock, and then helped her lay back down, her body heavy as she flopped to the mattress. He took a minute to dispose of the condom before laying down with her, and shifting her back into his arms, resting against his chest. In the quiet of their hotel room,

He traced designs into her back as she breathed evenly, trying to get her heart rate to return to normal.

“You have  certainly  learned some things, Grant Ward,” she muttered into his chest.

“ Eight years is a long time,” he replied softly. “Which leads me to my first question, how long has it been for you?”

“About a month, I think. Time travel is weird and nonlinear, but it works out to be just over a month.”

“So, time travel,” he said slowly. “You’re actually from the future.”

“Yeah,” she replied. “I’ll be born in about  ten years.”

Grant took in a sharp breath she felt in the movement of his chest.

“God, you’re a  _ child _ ,” he hissed, moving to sit up. She moved to sit as well, reaching for his shirt he’d discarded at the foot of the bed. “You’re forty years younger than I am.”

“Not today I’m not,” she replied, pulling the  shirt on over her head. “Today I’m only  ten years younger. Last time, I was only  one year younger.”

“And next time?” he asked.

“I don’t know, I was kind of planning on not letting you go once I found you again.”

His expression softened at that. 

“You sure about that? You don’t know what I’ve done since you left.”

She took a steadying breath, looked him right in the eyes, and said, “I know about Hydra.”

There were not words in any of the languages she knew that could explain how Grant’s entire expression and posture changed, freezing up and going rigid before her eyes. In all of their time together, she had never seen him closed off.

“I know that Garrett saved you from prison, and then used that to steer you into Hydra, posing inside of SHIELD. I know that Garrett was cruel to you and made you think that family and love was shaped like a fist. I know that you have always been treated like a weapon until you couldn’t see yourself as anything else. I also know that you are a good man no matter what happened to you, no matter what you’ve done.”

He shook his head at her.

“How can you believe that? A Hydra agent shoved a metal rod through your stomach, and left scars all over your body. You have so much reason to hate me, how can you -”

“You were never shown the kind of love you deserve. From childhood, the world was mean, and rough with you, and no one has ever taken the time to tell you how much you mean to them. No one has been kind to you the way that they should have, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry that the only mentor you’ve had hurt you. I’m sorry that your family didn’t love you unconditionally. I’m sorry that instead of a finding  a safe space, you’ve been kicked around over and over. I still believe that you are redeemable. I will always believe that you can be saved. And if you want, I will spend the rest of my life trying to convince you that you are worthy of unconditional, unflinching love and affection.”

Grant reached out and touched her arm.

“Bitty, I can’t ask that of you.”

“You’re not asking it of me,  I am offering it. I don’t mind carrying that, Grant, not for you.”

His mouth opened and closed.

“I mean, there is one condition.”

He laughed dryly , head dropping, and replied, “what is that?”

“You have to leave Hydra.”

“I thought it might be.”

“You are right. Hydra did shove a metal bar through my stomach, or they will. And I know what happens if I leave you, and I know how history unfolds. I know that Hydra is seductive, and you’ve been only given this one choice by a man you trust. But John Garrett, fuck that guy.”

He started to protest.

“No, look, why are you a part of Hydra?”

“I,  uhhh ,” he said and stalled.

“Do you agree with their tenants? Do you agree that humanity should be enslaved because it can’t be trusted with its own destiny? Do you agree with dominating the world?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why are you a part of Hydra?”

He didn’t answer that.

“Is it because of Garrett? Because you want to please him and avoid punishment? Because Garrett said you should?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough. You are a good man. You can be a good person. I believe that. But being a good person, that takes effort. It’s not always easy to make the good choice. There’s a lot you have to consider, other people and consequences and reactions, but at the end of the day, when you lay down in bed, you have to be able to sleep at night, knowing that what you’ve done is good, and you did it to better the world. I know in the field it’s quicker to just not have to worry, but not worrying about the consequences of your actions leads to girls like me walking home from school and getting impaled on a metal rod for the sake of convenience.”

Grant drew in a quick breath, sharp and edged, and when he looked up at her, there was uncertainty flickering like candlelight in his eyes. 

“I know you’re right,” Grant said softly, “but I – how can I?”

“It’s just a job, you just quit. Stop showing up. No call, no show. When John Garrett comes calling, turn off the lights and pretend you’re not home.”

“I can’t. I owe Garrett so much.”

“You do not owe him this much.”

“Because of him, I met you. If I hadn’t been in those woods on his orders, I wouldn’t have met you.”

“There’s a whole chain of events that would lead to us not meeting if you didn’t join Garrett and Hydra, but that doesn’t mean you should stay with them. We’ve already met. The past is already gone. We just have to decide what we do from now on.”

“So, if I leave Hydra and go with you, will that change history and you’ll stop existing right in front of me?”

“Funnily enough, no, which is a long story in and of itself, but I can’t promise you won’t forget me.”

“Wait. What’s the long story?”

“So, shortened version comes down to one of my uncles is technically my son from a timeline that never happened.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah. I know. It’s weird. Sometimes he looks at me with these big sad eyes when he thinks I’m not looking, missing his m u m. It’s a, it’s a weird experience.”

“Oh.”

“It’s hard to explain. I know. Time travel is weird.”

“I don’t want to change you or your life, Bitty.”

“I’m willing to let that happen.”

Grant leaned back against the headboard and sighed softly, running his hands through his hair. 

“God, this is so confusing. I want to be with you. I have for a while, in a way that I don’t know what to do with it. I’ve never felt this way for someone. I like you, so much. Fuck, I love you, Bitty, and – why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’ve never said that to me.”

“I didn’t realize it until you left, and I drove away kicking myself. I wanted to drive back immediately, but you’d said goodbye and I wanted to respect that.”

“I wanted you to turn around, too.”

“God, I should have,” he said. “I really should have. I should have turned around and swept you back into my arms and never let you leave.”

She shifted up onto her knees and shuffled towards him, taking his face in her hands.

“We can’t change the past. But what we can do is go from here. We decide what we want to do now, and we go do it. If you want to be with me, we go and build a life, have our kids, have our perfect life. If you don’t want that, that’s fine, I can let you go.”

“I don’t want to let you go. That’s not an option.”

“Okay, what do you want to do?”

He shifted her up into his lap and she leaned into him, resting her weight against his chest. 

“Whatever gets me more of this,” he said softly, kissing along her jaw. “I’m definitely a big fan of this.”

“You can have this for the rest of our lives.”

“How will that work?”

“I don’t know. I’m very good at faking documents. I could fake us a new life in some town on Lake Ontario. I hear Oswego has a great college there right on the lake.”

“You still want that with me? Me a firefighter, you a teacher, three kids, a brand-new built house.”

“Dogs,” she added.

“Yeah, and we could have a bunch of dogs.”

“I want that. I do. I still want it. I told you, if you want me, if you want that too, I’ll spend the rest of my life convincing you that you deserve that happiness.”

Grant kissed her slow, sliding his hands up into her hair, and gripped her against him.

“I have a plan,” she said into his mouth. “It’s a really good plan.”

“Tell me your plan.”

“Okay, so, the finding you part was fucking terrible. I was bouncing through time on your heels. Every time I thought I was going to get to you finally, you were gone from that place on another mission or moved to another SHIELD base. You are a slippery motherfucker, Grant Ward. But the first thing that I did was set up a bank account that’s been growing interest since 2005. which will be really nice in 2040. I periodically deposit a couple thousand dollars just to keep it alive and make it seem like it’s not a time traveler who is probably breaking the laws of time travel.”

“Okay. Are there laws of time travel?”

“No idea, actually. I mean, I haven’t been arrested yet, so I can’t say that there is or is not a bureau watching me and waiting for me to break a serious law, like take you out of your timeline. But we’ll have plenty of money for starting our lives over again so they won’t be able to find us.”

“That’s good, I guess. Can we go back to the part where you were trying to find me, though?”

“Yeah, I said that I’d been looking for you forever. I meant that literally. I’ve been looking for you across your timeline since I left. I waited on that pier every year on your birthday since the year after we met.”

Grant’s eyebrows pulled together, and his mouth pulled down at the corners. He wasn’t the kind of man who smiled too much, and she could see where he was starting to form frown lines around his mouth. She wanted to reach out and smooth her fingers over those lines, ease his worry until they went away.

“You did?”

“I got the box when I landed back at the Lighthouse in my own time, having almost given up because I looked everywhere for you and you just weren’t anywhere. And you didn’t date a goddamn thing in that box, so I guessed. I started the year after we met, and just jumped to each year until – well, until today.”

“Wow.”

“I’m persistent,” she said. He slid his hands down her sides to her hips, curling his fingers. 

“I’m figuring that out.”

“This is entirely my parents’ fault, you know,” she said. “My dad won’t like the fact that his cute, inspiring bedtime stories about his enduring love for my mum led me here to your lap against his wishes.”

“Your dad doesn’t want you here?”

“We got into a little bit of a fight before I left about it, so I’m assuming he wasn’t approving of this joyride through time.”

Grant grimaced.

“When did you figure it out?” she asked, tracing fingers over the swell of his cheekbones.

“That you’re from the future? It really solidified when I met your parents and they were my age, and they fit exactly how you described them. I thought maybe you were lying, that you were actually a SHIELD agent who just used Fitzsimmons as a backstory. But you look just like them, and your accent is theirs, and I just didn’t want to believe that. You never lied to me. You never made me think you weren’t exactly who you said you are.”

“I didn’t tell you about the future bit.”

He kissed along the underside of her jaw.

“I would have thought you were crazy,” he said.

“It feels like that sometimes,” she replied, leaning into his kisses. “You’re taking this really well.”

“I looked for you for almost a decade, and exhausted every avenue of finding you. And then, like I said, I met your parents, and couldn’t think of another explanation. So, when you showed up here, not having aged, it just made sense.”

“And you’re okay with it.”

“I’m getting there. Call it a testament to how much I love you.”

She grinned. 

“It sounds so good coming out of your mouth, you know,” she said as an explanation to his reaction. 

“Then, I won’t stop saying it.”

“Will you come home with me?”

“We don’t know what will happen if I do.”

“We’ll be together.”

“What will happen to the world, Bitty?”

“ Ahh , yes. That. No idea.”

“We can’t break the world for each other.”

Bitty looked at him, eyes tracing over his face, studying him, every angle, every line, every curve. She could look at him forever. She wanted to. There was nothing she wanted more than to spend forever just staring at him, memorizing and learning every plane and line on his face, the way they twisted and changed with his emotions. If given the chance, she absolutely would break the world to save him.

“I don’t know what to do, then. I can’t stay here. That’ll break things too,” she said. “And I don’t want to let you go.”

“I can go back to being apart from you,” he said, the slightest wobble to his voice, “if you promise you’ll -”

“No.”

“Bitty.”

“No. I’m not going away. I’ve never had anything feel like this before. Every time I try to get close to someone, I am  _ too much _ for them. I’m too enthusiastic, too weird, too smart -”

“Your intelligence is not a turn off.”

“I know that, but other people seem to have a problem with it. Especially guys. They don’t like to feel inferior.”

“Thing about this thing between us is that I know I’m inferior to you,” he said.

“Oh, you sweet talker,” she said.

“I mean it.”

“The point is, no one else treats me like this. No one has driven me across the country. No one has listened to me talk for hours and actually sounded like they cared. No one makes me laugh quite like you do. I’m incredibly lucky to have met you, and I won’t ever meet another person like you.”

“You will,” he said. “You’re too good for people not to be drawn to.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Bitty.”

“Grant.”

“You’re extremely exhausting sometimes.”

“I know. Like I said, I’m too much for most people. I’m a handful.”

“Luckily, I have two hands.”

“See, you can’t say things like that and then send me away.”

“I don’t want to,” he said. “Of course, I don’t want to send you away, but what else am I supposed to do, Bits? The good thing to do here is not destroy the timeline, even though I desperately want to choose you. And you want me to be a good man who does the good thing, the right thing.”

She groaned and rested her forehead against his.

“Don’t use my logic against me.”

“You deserve the kind of man that makes that choice, right? You want me to be the man that makes the choice that isn’t easy.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean not choosing me.”

“I know.”

“This sucks.”

“This sucks,” he agreed.

“Let’s not decide today,” she said.

“I have to get back before the team gets worried. And you don’t want  _ your parents _ tracing me here and finding out who you are.”

“ Ahh ,” she replied.

“I really don’t want to explain to your parents who are my friends why I ran off with their daughter who hasn’t been born yet because they’re not even together.”

“Yeah, no, I get that.”

“Especially if they walk in on this,” he said, gesturing to all of them, their bodies pressed together, her legs straddled over his hips, her chest covered in his shirt against his. “That would be really hard to even start to explain.”

“I’d say let them see, but that would be weird.”

“Yeah.”

“Voyeurism might be a thing for me, but not like that.”

“God, I hope not,” he laughed, “not in front of your parents.”

They fell quiet for a little bit, Grant’s hands making slow circles along her sides while she stroked over his jaw.

“If only we could just stay here forever, huh. We wouldn’t have to make any choice. Just live here in this moment. God, how good would that be. We wouldn’t have to decide between happiness and the right choice, between love and family, or love and destiny, whatever you want to call it. Just an infinite amount of time wrapped up in this beautiful hotel room with a view of the lake. We wouldn’t have to worry for anything. No Hydra. No SHIELD. No parent introductions which is going to be massively weird.”

“Well, it’s still my birthday. So, for now, let’s pretend the world doesn’t exist,” he offered. “The world doesn’t exist. There is nothing outside of this hotel room. It’s just you, me, this bed, and room service.”

“How does the world not exist but room service does?”

“It’s magic,” he said teasingly, kissing her. “Don’t question the magic.”

“Is this a special brand of birthday magic?”

“Of course.”

She smiled.

“Show me the magic, then, Agent Ward.”

“I’ve never been turned on by being called agent until right now.”

“That’s my own special kind of magic.”

He slid his hands underneath the back of her thighs, and easily flipped her onto her back underneath him. 

“Show me the magic, then,” he said, and kissed her deep. 

* * *

Blissfully, Bitty slept, and not a single dream came to her. 

When she woke, though, Grant was gone. The overnight bag that had been sitting on the dresser was gone, and the space where he’d laid was cold.

“That motherfucker,” she hissed, sitting up. There was a note left on the side table written on the hotel’s stationary, her name at the top in handwriting she’d acquainted herself with quite a bit over the last few days. 

_ Bitty _ , 

_ You deserve someone who makes the right choice, not the easy one. The right choice is going back and staying in my timeline.  _

_ Please know that I love you. _

_ Grant _

“Jesus Christ, Grant,” she said, even if no one was there to hear it. 

She stared at his note, turned it over, and over in her hands. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, she stood and got dressed, packed her bag, and left. She stopped at a local library, checked out a laptop and hid in the corner away from prying eyes. There were a lot of things she would do in public, but accessing the SHIELD mainframe to track the Bus’s last location and any recent rental car charges nearby under the SHIELD company credit card was not something she needed other people to know that she did. 

The Bus was smaller than Zephyr One, which made sense. Zephyr One was the sequel, bigger and more ambitious than the standard Bus they’d started out on. The Zephyr was space-capable, and traveled in time. The Zephyr was  Bitty’s technological and engineering  _ dream _ . But there was something sweet and quaint about the Bus that she couldn’t deny. This is where all of her dad’s stories started. He tended to ignore the time in SHIELD’s lab, or the Academy. Sometimes, if she asked, he’d tell her. But his stories, the ones she loved the most, started right here on the Bus.

She had a special fondness for the Bus.

It was parked at an unguarded airfield surprisingly not far from Rochester, in a small town off of I-90 that was mostly pine trees and corn fields, the loading bay door down, almost inviting her in. She ran her fingertips along the metal as she walked up the loading bay. There was a sense of nostalgia running through her, even though she’d never been here before. She’d imagined it dozens, hundreds of times growing up, sitting in her dad’s lap with his chin resting on her head, feeling the rumble of his voice against her back. He’d drawn her pictures, simple sketches down in an engineer’s quick scrawl. She’d tacked up her favorites to her corkboard over her bed, inspiration for her dreams that never came. 

“Hey, old girl,” she said, even though the Bus was still brand new here. “Nice to finally meet you.”

The Bus was set up different from Zephyr One, but she could still find her way around any SHIELD plane. She started at the tail and worked her way forward.

“Hey!” a call came from behind her as she turned a corner towards where she suspected the gym and training rooms would be. Her aunt Daisy was staring at her, much younger and less confident. “You can’t be here!”

“Fuck,” she muttered, and ducked her head as if she hadn’t seen or heard her.

“Coulson, we have a problem,” she heard Daisy say. “Unauthorized person on board.”

Right where expected, she found the door to the gym and stepped inside. What she wasn’t expecting was to find that it was connected to the lab, and find herself facing not just Grant but her parents and Coulson. 

“You,” she said, undeterred, pointed directly at Grant who turned at the sound of her voice.

“How did you get on board?” Coulson asked, voice calm in a way that came from years of training and field work. Uncle Mack had that same evenness to his voice. 

“Bitty,” he replied, and his eyes immediately went to Fitz and Simmons in the lab, looking at them. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“This is what you get for disappearing on me while I’m asleep, Grant,” she said, ignoring the looks she was getting. She wasn’t there for them; she was there for Grant. “You think after all I went through to find you before that I couldn’t find you on the Bus? Of all places? That’s where you decided to hide?”

There was a quiet, awkward silence as their spectators looked at each other and at her, trying to piece together the clues so far.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this here,” he said a little more suggestively, eyes going to her parents again. They were so young when she looked at them, and it distracted her for a second. She’d seen the photos, marveled at how much of a baby face her dad had, especially without a beard, curly hair growing out before he learned how to style it. Her mum was as gorgeous as ever, hair pulled back, wearing a sweater a little too loose on her, sleeves rolled up while she worked. Bitty had seen the pictures, but seeing them in person, living and breathing and  _ young _ was something else entirely.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have ran off, then.”

He set down what he was holding, a target he’d been fixing to the heavy bag in front of him. Bitty looked to Daisy entering the gym after her, and the timeline clicked in her head. Daisy isn’t Daisy yet, she was still Skye here, and she was still learning how to fight and be a part of SHIELD. 

“Bitty,” he said, drawing her eyes back to him with his tired voice. 

“You don’t get to Bitty me like that.”

“It’s your name.”

“Well, then,” she stumbled over her words, and frowned at him, “you don’t get to use my name. You don’t get to use my name if you’re going to martyr yourself and our relationship.”

“You can’t tell me that you want me to be a good person and then yell at me when I try to do that.”

“I didn’t mean this,” she stressed, gesturing wildly. “You’re absolutely mad if you think this is what I intended. We were apart for a decade and this is the first thing you decide to do?”

“A decade?” she heard her mum whisper, “how old was she when they met, do you think?”

“ Shhh ,” Fitz hissed.

“Are you finished?” he asked patiently.

“No! No, I’m not finished. Yes, I want you to do the right thing, but there is no way that this is the only right thing. The world is so big and so infinite and there are so many choices, you can’t tell me that this is the only option we have. And! Beyond that, you don’t get to decide what my future looks like without talking to me about it. If I want to change the course of history for you, I am going to. That’s my decision.”

Grant stepped towards her, not interrupting but entering her space. Just his presence calmed her, and she sighed, dropping her head against his chest.

“You can’t just leave like that, Grant, not without saying goodbye.”

He tugged her closer by the front of her jacket, and kissed her hair. 

“Are you done?”

“Yeah,” she said, soft and sad.

“I should have stayed to say goodbye, but we’re so bad at goodbyes. I almost didn’t leave just because I wanted to be there if you had a nightmare.”

“I definitely would be less angry if you’d stayed.”

“I know.”

She peeked out of her periphery and saw her parents pointedly not looking at them but still listening in. They had done that her entire life, especially when she was recovering after her kidnapping and impaling. Meanwhile, Coulson and Daisy were hanging nearby unabashedly, warily watching her.

“I decided that I couldn’t change the life you’ve lived just for my happiness. If I leave, it changes your history, your family. You don’t know what you’ll be going back to.”

“If you stay and be a good man, you change my history anyway.”

“I’m going to be good, Bits. No matter what, the next time Garrett calls, I’m not going to answer, and you did that for me.”

“This is unfair.”

“I know. But I’m going to be someone worthy of your attention and your time, Bitty. And who knows, maybe when your dad figures out time travel, I’ll come find you. You make me want to be better, be someone you would and should love.”

“I already love you, though,” she whispered.

“And I love you. But even I can’t choose to potentially destroy the timeline because I love you. I meant it. We can’t break the world.”

“I mean, you’re right, but I don’t like it.”

“It is going to hurt every day that you are not there with me, but I can’t run off with you just because I want to avoid that hurt. You have to understand, I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to lose you. If I thought it would work, we’d run away right now because there’s nothing I want more than to just be happy for once, no strings, no complications, no secret agendas.”

“Promise you’ll come find me on the other side if you can.”

“Of course.”

“I  don ’t  want to go ,” she said , almost whining. 

“Do you have all of your stuff?” he asked, stroking over her temple and jaw.

“Yeah. All in the bag.”

“The device?”

“Yeah, in the bag, too. I made it smaller.”

“You’re amazing,” he said, and he sounded so sad as he traced a thumb over her jaw. “We should finish this conversation in private, at least.”

“Suddenly shy?” she teased, even though tears were starting to gather, voice thick.

“I just think our goodbyes shouldn’t be public, especially the way I want to say goodbye to you.”

“Sap,” she said, and they both ignored how her voice broke a little.

“I’m not a voyeur like you,” he replied.

“Not yet.”

He kissed her forehead and took her hand.

“I’ll vouch for her, she’s good to be on the Bus,” Grant said to Coulson.

“How’d she get on-board?” Daisy, or Skye asked.

“I walked,” Bitty said, unable to stop herself. “The loading bay door was open, so I just walked on, which is extremely irresponsible for highly trained SHIELD agents.”

Grant let out a small noise like a laugh.

“Your mouth is going to get you in trouble, Bitty.”

“Always has.”

“I’m extremely curious why this civilian knows how to find us, Ward, or who we are,” Coulson said. 

“It’s a very long story,” Grant said.

Bitty took her surprisingly-not-forged SHIELD credentials – well, not forged, but not technically real either. She handed them over to Coulson with a smile.

“Not a civilian, sir,” she explained, “but not an agent either.”

“Interesting,” Coulson said inspecting it. “It’s nice to meet you, Miss Leonard.”

Grant made a noise and looked at the ID in Coulson’s hand. She nudged him with her elbow to keep him quiet, and took the ID back. 

“It’s nice to meet you too, Agent?”

“Coulson, Phil Coulson.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, Agent Phil Coulson,” she repeated. “I hope we get to cross paths some time.”

It was Grant’s turn to nudge her in the side. 

“Come on, love,” she said softly. “Let’s go say goodbye.”

She tucked away her credentials into her bag and then started off, holding onto his hand to keep him close by. 

“Lovely meeting you all,” she called over her shoulder, walking them out of the training gym. Grant took over as they left, leading them to his bunk. Bitty had so much she wanted to say, but she wasn’t sure how she could stop if she started. 

Safely behind the door to his bunk, Grant pulled her into his arms and kissed her. 

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Grant said, “but I’m glad I got to see you.”

“You shouldn’t have left in the first place.”

“I wouldn’t have left if you’d been looking at me.”

“I certainly don’t see a problem with that myself.”

“You have so much ahead of you, Bitty. I won’t be the only person you love. I hate that this will hurt you in any way, but when you go back, I want you to move on and live your life. If you meet someone that you want to be with, someone who makes you happy, I want you to be happy with them. I don’t want you to wait for me – I'm not done, don’t argue – if the universe, God, the gods, the fates, whoever decide we’re meant to be together, I will come to the future to be with you. I will absolutely steal a time machine or something if I have to, but I don’t want you waiting for me. Promise me you’ll go live your life when you get back, even if it hurts, especially because it hurts.”

He rested his forehead against hers.

“I love you so much,” she said.

“I love you too,” he replied. “God, I love you, Bitty. I’ll never meet anyone else like you.”

“That’s not true. You already know my parents,” she said, but he shook his head.

“No, they’re not your parents yet, and they’re not  _ you _ even if they were. You are beautiful, and smart, and incredibly stubborn, and you are like no one else. You are one of a kind, and I love you. I will always love you.”

“You’re making it very difficult to leave.”

“I want you never to doubt how much I love you. Even when we’re apart, I want you to feel that. I’ve already waited for eight years ; I can wait forever for you. But no matter how long I’m gone, I want you to remember that. Okay?”

She kissed him, soft, sweet, barely there.

“How could I forget that  _ the  _ Grant Ward loves me? That’s just blasphemy.”

“Bitty,” he said, and her name had never sounded like defeat before.

“I’ll go. I won’t make this harder than it is for either other of us,” she replied. “But you promised to come find me when Dad figures out time travel, okay? You promised. So, if you don’t come find me, I’ll be very angry and I’ll come back to beat you up.”

“I’ll let you.”

“I love you, Grant.”

He kissed her first next. 

“Go be brilliant, Elizabeth Fitz-Simmons. I’ll be good while you’re gone.”

“I know you will.”

“I’ll make you so proud.”

“You already have but I can’t wait to hear all about it.”

He let her go, fingers falling away from her hips, and he stepped away. She took a deep breath, and stepped back as well, then pulled her device from her bag.

“Last chance to not let me go, Grant.”

“Oh, baby, if I could stay with you forever,” he said, reaching out but his hand fell before he touched her. 

“Okay.”

She powered up the device, and tuned it to her signature without letting it capture Grant’s as well. The icy fingers down her spine were familiar by now, a touch as familiar as Grant’s, as her own. It  autotuned to her own time and to the Lighthouse, the home base location she’d set as an in case of emergency precaution.

“Goodbye,” she said. “For now.”

“I’ll see you later, Fitz-Simmons,” he said and she pressed the activation button.

And she was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

The Lighthouse was bustling when she landed in the central control room, and came to a dead stop at her sudden arrival. She held up a finger, and dropped to her knees at a trash can to throw up. She was never going to get used to that.

“Elizabeth!” Uncle Mack said from his place before the wall of computers. 

“Hi Uncle Mack,” she replied, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, her voice wobbling. “My parents here?”

“They are,” Fitz answered from behind her. She stood and headed straight to him, and he enveloped her in his arms. “Welcome home.”

“Missed you,” she said.

“Missed you,” he replied. “How was your adventure?”

“Fruitless, as you can see.”

“That’s okay. You’re safe. You made it home. We were so worried, so it doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t come with. You made it back to us.”

“I did.”

“Come on, you must be exhausted,” he said, pressing a warm, loving kiss to her forehead. She gripped the front of his shirt, glad to be home, aching everywhere. “Your mum is making lunch in our rooms.”

She followed him through the halls back to their quarters, quiet as he talked about what they’d gotten up to while she was gone, progress on devices she’d never heard of. She nodded, but something felt wrong. How long had she been gone for them? She barely knew how long she’d been gone for  _ her _ , though, and she’d been present the entire time.

“I have a present for you,” her dad called into their rooms as he let them in.

They’d changed the room code.

“What’s that?” 

Her mum stepped out of the kitchen, drying her hands, and smiled at Bitty.

“Best present ever.”

She came over and wrapped Bitty into her arms, taking her away from Fitz’s side.

“Welcome back, love.”

“Thanks, Mum. It’s unbelievably good to be home.”

* * *

After lunch, Bity stretched out and yawned. 

“I think it’s nap time,” her mum said softly, to which Bitty absolutely agreed. Fitz escorted her to her room as if she’d never been there, or because he didn’t want to let her out of his sight just yet. 

“Everything seems to be the same,” she said, sinking into her bed. “Which is concerning.”

“Why is that?”

“ It means that Grant either didn’t change, or that he did and it didn’t impact anything so I could have taken him with me.”

“Grant? Grant who?”

“Grant Ward,” she replied.

“What about him?”

“Why do you think I left on my, my adventure?”

“Exploring. Testing the device.”

“The device that I built?”

“Of course.”

“And you’re not cross about that?”

“No, of course not. Why would I be cross about that? You’re a part of the SHIELD engineering team.”

Bitty looked at her father, and then turned to look up at her wall, and startled. There was three degrees, as there had been before, but instead of two linguistics and an engineering degree, Bitty had earned three engineering degrees, including a full doctorate.

“Holy shit,” she said. “Okay. That’s certainly weird. Why did that happen?”

“What’s wrong?” 

“Apparently I did change the past. I don’t have a doctorate, and if I did, it’s definitely not in engineering.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before I left, I had a master’s in linguistics, and I speak fifteen languages. I wasn’t a part of SHIELD except as a consultant sometimes for translation. This isn’t, all of this, this isn’t my life.”

Except that she caused this to happen. She had changed Grant, pulled him from Hydra. At least, that’s what she hoped she’d done. If Grant hadn’t actually left Hydra, she was going to kill him.

“Tell me about Grant Ward,” she said.

“He was a good friend, saved us a bunch of times, but he left SHIELD to be a civilian a couple of years before you were born. Why?”

“Where’d he go?”

“He had May drop him off somewhere. I’m not sure where.”

Where did he go, then? Had he changed his mind, or forgotten her?

“Maybe you know this already, but where I come from,” Bitty said slowly, “Grant was Hydra.” 

Fitz froze, eyes coming to meet hers.

“He’d always been Hydra, joined when Garrett recruited him at 17. He was a bad guy who hurt you, hurt the team numerous times. He was cold, and cruel, and mean. Coulson actually killed him on an alien planet and left him there. But when I met him, he was 22 years old, and confused  about  who he was and who he could be. He helped me get home, and I guess somewhere along the way I fell in love with him, and he fell in love with me. I refused to let him be a bad guy so I went back and convinced him to leave Hydra before he betrayed everyone.”

“Holy shit,” Fitz said. “Bitty.”

He stood up and left her room. She hopped up and followed him out of the room, curiosity egging her on, to the kitchen where her mum was cleaning up the dishes.

“Hello loves, I see that we’ve disregarded nap time,” she said cheerily.

“Do you remember the girl who walked onto the Bus, yelled at Ward, and disappeared?” Fitz asked.

“Yeah, why?”

Fitz turned and gestured to Bitty.

“Bitty is Ward’s mystery girl, and the reason he turned his back on Hydra.”

“No, she’s not,” Simmons argued. “No way. Bitty is a kid, not, what, she’d have to be 40 or so now?”

“Our daughter also time travels with a device of her own making.”

Simmons stalled, and looked over Bitty as if she’d never seen her before.

“Oh. No. No way. No. That can’t be?”

“Right?”

“You know I am standing right here?” Bitty asked. “And I can hear you.”

“Why Ward though?” Fitz asked, leaning into the counter. Her mum set down the sponge and moved to stand beside him, a united front as always.

“It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t look for Grant to fall in love with him. I just happened upon him when I was traveling, and my parents, you guys  from that timeline had  never mentioned him when I was growing up because of the terrible things he’d done so I didn’t know who he was until I got back and it was already too late.”

Her parents traded a look, the same look they’d shared since she was a kid, and she was glad that if nothing else, at least that had not changed. 

“You don’t seem angry that I changed the timeline,” she said softly. “Which is not like you at all. I mean, I even changed me accidentally. Or, the me that you raised. I’m not that me. I’m different.”

“You said you speak fourteen languages, right?” her dad asked.

“Fifteen, but yes.”

They both looked at her, and then she could see the reconfiguration behind their eyes, fitting their idea of her in with this new information.

Her mum nodded, looked over her daughter, and asked, just as Jemma Simmons from any Earth, any timeline would, “which ones?”

* * *

Bitty designed in secret, tucked away in one of the empty warehouse storage rooms with her sketchbook and a cup of tea that she’d emerge with only to refill it and disappear again. She used the designs a s a focus, ignoring the days that ticked by without Grant’s arrival, and buried herself in the work. 

She couldn’t expect Grant to show up right away. He had made her promise she wouldn’t wait for him, that she would keep going with her life. 

So, she drafted up her designs, worked out basic coding algorithms they could start building off of. She could create, that’s what she could do. That’s what she could always do. Since she was a kid, left alone in a big empty tin can with the world’s leading technology barely hidden away, she had found ways to create, to design, to build, and rebuild. She wasn’t Tony Stark, she wasn’t going to change the world from a cave, but when her heart ached for Grant, when she longed for the simplicity of the truck on an open highway in the middle of America, she tucked herself into her work and made something from it.

“Dad, Daisy, could you come to the lab?” she asked one day, finally satisfied. They’d go through prototypes and fix her mistakes and improve what she hadn’t even thought of, but this was the best rough draft that she could create.

“I have an idea,” she started when they had gathered, and then she swept into the pitch she’d been building since her first draft. 

“What if we can program it to learn new languages based on the language used today? That would allow it to evolve, learn slang and colloquialisms. If we hook it up to an internet database, it’ll be able to learn the ways people speak and communicate, and will adapt,” Bitty offered finally, standing between her father and Aunt Daisy, her designs spread out on the laboratory table before them, bared to the world, to criticism. She hated this part of the creating the most. 

“We don’t have a good track record with AI,” Daisy said, giving Fitz a significant look.

“Not AI as in it has sentience and a personality. It’ll learn strictly grammar and syntax.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Fitz said.

“And it could, in theory, help us communicate with beings from, you know, beyond Earth. Especially with Dad’s help with the language he knows, which can act as a seed for the translator to grow from.”

“We could at least try,” Daisy said to Fitz. “If anything starts to go wrong, we can shut it down, but between the three of us, it should be a piece of cake.”

“Why do you want to build this in the first place?” Fitz asked, turning to Bitty.

“I won’t always be here to translate for you, for SHIELD. I want the freedom to leave the Lighthouse, and travel, and be out of service area without worrying that you’ll need me while I’m gone. I’m not a SHIELD agent, and I’ve never wanted to be. Despite that, I’ve felt like I owe SHIELD something so big that I have to stay near to repay it. I loved Cornell, it’s a beautiful campus and I met some of my best friends there, but I always wanted to go to the University of Edinburgh ever since I was a kid.”

Fitz frowned.

“Why didn’t you?”

Bitty gestured around them at the lab, at the Lighthouse, at SHIELD as a whole, as a concept.

“I’m sorry that we made you feel like you owed us anything,” Fitz said quietly. “You do not ever have to do what we’ve done to feel like we love you, to feel like you’re fulfilling some kind of prerequisite for being our daughter. You don’t have to follow in our footsteps, Bits.”

“I know, but it’s hard to divorce myself from SHIELD when it’s all I’ve ever known. It literally raised me. When you and Mum were gone on missions, it was SHIELD agents who watched me, took care of me, taught and played with me. How can I just step away after all of that?”

“Elizabeth,” her dad said, sliding from Agent to Father in one word. “You don’t owe us anything, not SHIELD, not your mum and me. It was our pleasure and honor to raise and care for you, no matter what you want to be when you grow up. If you want to study in Scotland, and be a linguist, and love Grant Ward of all people, you do not owe us anything that would prevent you for doing and being all of that. You are our daughter, and no matter what you do, you will make us proud. Do you understand that?”

He pulled her into him and kissed her forehead softly.

“Thank you, Daddy,” she muttered.

“Now, let’s build this so you can leave.”

* * *

“Nan wants me to come visit,” Bitty said at dinner one night, twirling her fork in the pasta her mum had made fresh that night. “Actually, Nan wants me to come stay with her for a while.”

Granted, she’d accidentally baited  Elsbeth into offering her spare room after mentioning that she wasn’t seeing anyone, not after Grant. It triggered something in  Elsbeth , some protective matchmaker Nan gene, and she wouldn’t let go of this notion that Bitty needed to meet a nice Scottish man to distract her. 

“That’s not a bad idea,” Simmons said. “Get out of the Lighthouse for a while. Figure out what you want.”

Bitty didn’t say that she knew what she wanted, that she’d known for months.

“I could also see Gran and Grandpa while I’m there,” she said to her Mum.

“You don’t need our permission, Bitty,” her Dad said. “You’re an adult. You can do what you want.”

“I know that,” she said, still twirling her fork.

“You have our permission anyway,” Jemma said quietly, “if you want it.”

“Thanks, Mum,” Bitty said softly. “The last time I made a decision without your approval, or permission, it led to all of this.” 

She gestured around the, well, at the  _ world _ she’d accidentally changed. Well, accidentally, on purpose. Whatever.

“Live and learn,” Jemma said.

“You are much more chill in this timeline than you were when I was growing up. I really must have been less of a pain in the ass here, huh.”

“I don’t think you were a pain,” Jemma answered. “You were just curious and had a tendency to build little annoying robots that always ended up under our bed at night, but you were a rather delightful child.”

“I never stole a weapon, nearly died from a slow gas leak, poisoning me?”

Her parents blinked at her.

“You did what?!” her dad asked.

“Yeah, I don’t know why I’m telling you this then, but when I was a teenager, I took this scrapped weapon that fascinated me and it apparently was dangerous, and put me in a coma.”

“Elizabeth!” her dad scolded.

“Just a little one.”

“There is no such thing as a  _ little _ coma, Elizabeth,” her mum said. 

“That’s kind of exactly what you said last time, too. So, clearly, I didn’t do stupid shit in this timeline, or I was better at hiding it,” Bitty said softly. “Good to know. You’re going to be blown away by this, then.”

She pulled her bag off the back of the chair, rifled through it to find her journal, the one she’d written her adventure out to her dad, and set it in between her parents.

“On my  _ adventure _ , I wrote entries for you, like letters.”

Her dad reached for it and flipped it open to the first entry. Bitty had had Brennan go over the journal to make sure there wasn’t anything too weird or too aggressive for her parents to read. He’d given her a thumbs up, and also wanted to know everything about Grant and their time together.

“Wait, you  _ did  _ sleep with him when you saw him again, right? Because he’s  _ really _ hot, and I don’t think I could forgive you if you didn’t,” Brennan had asked.

“Of course, I did,” she had laughed. It felt nice to be back with Brennan, sitting on his bed and drinking a beer with movies they weren’t watching playing in the background like old times. “He’s so beautiful, Bren. He’s more than just hot, too, you know. He’s a good man, smart and resourceful, and he listens so well.”

“Sounds like someone’s in love,” Brennan had teased. “Which is insane because Grant Ward is older than our parents.”

“I am, which  _ is _ insane, but I didn’t mean to do it.”

Brennan had rolled his eyes at her, but it was so nice to be back with him, that she couldn’t even be annoyed at him for once.

“I will read these later,” her dad said, closing the journal and setting it on the table. “Thank you for sharing these with us, Bitty.”

“So, I think I’m going to visit Nan,” she said, steering them back to the point at hand. “If Patterson wouldn’t mind flying me to Edinburgh.”

“I’ll ask,” Fitz said, which meant that he’d order Patterson to do it as a senior agent.

“Thanks, Dad,” she replied, kicking his foot playfully.

“You know I’d do anything for you.”

“I know that.”

* * *

“Bitty,” her dad, catching her attention as she studied the translation their prototype had churned out. It was translating the words literally without considering context or grammar, but it would get there. She wanted to get as much time tinkering with the matrix before she left that weekend for Scotland. “Can I talk to you?”

“Of course,” she said, setting down her pen to look at him. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk to you about Ward,” he said, sitting down at the work bench beside her. “I finished your journal and I had some questions.”

“Go for it.”

“How did you do it? How did you convince him to leave Hydra and disobey Garrett?”

“I asked. Well, I told, rather. I said that if he didn’t believe in Hydra’s tenants, and he was just there to make Garrett happy, then that wasn’t a good enough reason to be a part of Hydra. And people doing things for convenience leads to, well, you know, me getting impaled.”

He froze and looked her over, eyebrows furrowed.

“I know it was harsh, but like, it’s true,” she said.

“What?”

“What?” she echoed. “Did that not happen here?”

“I think I’d remember my daughter getting  _ impaled _ , Elizabeth.”

She lifted her shirt to show him the scar cutting down her middle.

“Holy shit,” he hissed out. “What the fuck?”

“I was 14, and a little brat. I didn’t do what I was told, and got kidnapped. There was an accident, and something exploded, and a metal pole went straight through me.”

Her dad rested his forehead against her, and she let her shirt fall back into place.

“I’m sorry that your well-behaved daughter got replaced with me.”

“You don’t have to ever be sorry for that, Bits. Your mum and I will love you no matter what, whether you behave or not. You’re our daughter.”

“I’m not the daughter you raised, this you, and this you is not the father that raised me,” she argued. She wasn’t sure what she was arguing for. “And I’m – I’m not a good person. You haven’t had to put up with my bullshit yet, the sneaky around, and the lying, the dangerous shit I’ve done. I put myself in a coma because of it.” 

Maybe she didn’t want him to walk away after realizing that she wasn’t worth it. 

Maybe, maybe if he was going to give up on her, she wanted it to happen sooner rather than later. 

“That doesn’t matter. You’ve done something impossible here, Bitty. You survived so much, and while someone else would turn bitter and hateful, it made you so kind and forgiving that you saved Grant Ward. How could I not love you just because you’re an alternate timeline Bitty? You’re still Bitty. You’re still my baby girl, okay? I know, I know  _ you,  _ Elizabeth, and you are still my daughter no matter what.”

“Yeah,” she said softly.

He kissed her forehead.

“I want to show you something.”

He pulled up a tablet and signed into his admin account to access all files.

“What is it?”

“The Grant Ward you described in your journals, that’s only part of the agent I knew. And I want you to be sure that you’re making the right decision.”

He pulled up a video file dated nearly a decade before she was born, the thumbnail before he hit play of a hallway, nondescript and empty. 

“We were backing up old hard drives from past headquarters that were recently recovered, and I came across an old surveillance file.”

He hit play, and Bitty watched, leaning in to see the screen better. There were several seconds with nothing on screen, and then a blur of motion as Grant dove into frame, the body of a solider beneath him as they crashed to the ground. With ruthless efficiency, Grant slammed the soldier’s head into the concrete and they went slack below him. Without hesitation, Grant was up on his feet as another soldier came at him, and he used the soldier’s momentum to clothesline him and sent him to the ground. Bitty couldn’t look away, even as Grant crushed the soldier’s windpipe under his booth before taking his gun out and aiming it down the hallway. Without emotion, he pulled the trigger several times. When he ran out of bullets, he flipped the gun around to pistol whip the next soldier so hard that Bitty could see the blood splatter from his mouth on the footage.

“Holy shit,” Bitty muttered.

She’d always known in the back of her head that Grant was lethal, but it was in the background behind how good he was to her. He was trained to be Hydra whether or not he left the organization. He wasn’t just the boy from the woods, learning to survive with his dog. He was an agent, a walking weapon. 

“He wasn’t ever like that with me.”

“That’s  _ good _ ,” Fitz said. 

The Grant on-screen broke a man’s kneecap and used him as a battering ram to slam another soldier into the wall so hard that he did not get back up. It was equal parts fascinating and horrifying to watch.

“A lot of Hydra agents had a vendetta against Ward after he turned from them,” her dad said, pausing the video. “He was unsafe for a couple of years, always looking over his shoulder, but he’s kind of a force to be reckoned with and no one was good enough to take him out.”

“I put him in danger,” she said. “I asked him to leave.”

“That’s certainly not on you, though. I’m sure the Ward from your timeline had a far worse story based on what you wrote.”

She stared at the frozen video, at Grant’s emotionless face, a splatter of someone’s blood across one cheek.

“I just want you to be sure that you’re making the right choice for you,” he continued. “Okay? Something to think about while you’re away from SHIELD for a little while.”

He kissed her temple, and left her in the lab with her translation and the tablet, Grant’s eyes cold and hard on the screen.

* * *

Scotland, as always, was beautiful. Bitty caught a cab to Nan’s house in a small village outside of Edinburgh, and fell in love with the country all over again. Nan lived in a two-bedroom cottage next to a stream and a beautiful lush forest.

“My sweet Bitty!” Nan greeted her, accent thicker than Bitty remembered it, thicker even than her dad’s. Her curling ponytail was mostly grey these days, and her blue eyes bright. “Welcome home, love!”

Bitty was swept into a hug and held tight. 

“Hi Nan,” she said into the curly top of Nan’s head.

“It’s so good to have you back, Bitty. Your dad keeping you in America of all places is just mean and spiteful.”

“He’s not keeping me there,” Bitty said, but Nan tutted at her and bustled them into the cottage.

Bitty spent her time digging in Nan’s garden, getting her hands dirty, helping with dinner, chatting in Scottish Gaelic with her. It was nice to use it, to spend time away from SHIELD, doing normal things like go to the shops and watch bad daytime TV. They made dinner every night, and every so often, Nan would intentionally invite an eligible bachelor from town over for lunch or to fix something in the cottage that she clearly had broken herself. 

“Nan, you know that I’m an engineer, right? I can fix the sink,” Bitty argued.

“Don’t be silly, love. You’re a guest.”

“Funny, that’s not what you said about the dishes last night.”

Nan waved her away, and brought David, a handyman a couple years older than her, into the house. David, apparently, was born and raised in Scotland, single, and was a Good Boy.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Bitty said as Nan found something to do, leaving Bitty and Good Scottish Boy David alone. “I’m sorry about this. Nan thinks she can cure my American citizenship with a Scottish husband.”

David laughed and he was cute, she had to at least give Nan props for that. He wasn’t Grant, but he had gorgeous green eyes and soft curling brown hair. He was tall, not hard compared to her, and had lean muscles from hard work every day.

“I’m surprisingly used to it. Every Nan in the town tries this. Apparently, I come off as husband material, so I can’t say I mind.”

“I’ll tell you a secret, though, as long as it doesn’t get back to my Nan, because she won’t take no for an answer. I actually just got out of a really intense relationship and am not looking a relationship.”

“I will pass that through the bachelor grapevine,” he said.

“I appreciate that,” she said.

“I should go fix the sink,” he said, ducking away.

“No more Scottish boys, Nan,” she begged after three more potential suitors were called to the house. “If something is broken, I will fix it.”

“You’re just like your da, you know that.”

“Did you try hooking Dad up with eligible Scottish bachelors, too?”

Nan rolled her eyes and Bitty swore she was looking at her Dad for a moment.

“I will let you know if I’m ready to date, or be matched with nice Scottish handymen, okay? I didn’t come stay with you for men. I want to spend time with you.”

Nan had cooed and pat her cheek.

“You’re a good girl, Bitty, I couldn’t ask for a better granddaughter.”

“Thanks, Nan.”

Overall, she loved Scotland, and she could hear accent sliding more Scottish, especially when she called her parents.

“Are you coming home soon?” her mum asked.

“I might be, yeah. I love Nan, but she brought another handyman home for me to meet, and I’m going to scream. It’s hard to explain that I technically have a boyfriend, except kind of not because he might never be with me again because of time travel.”

“Wow,” Fitz said from off-screen, the lab laid out behind her mum. “Nan’s accent is really affecting you, huh.”

“She sounds proper Scottish,” Simmons said, looking over at Fitz.

“Tell Da that he can’t talk to me unless he’s on-screen.”

“ _Da_ ,” Simmons echoed, taking on a terrible Scottish accent to tease her.

“Shut up,” Bitty replied. “Maybe I’ll never come home if you keep this attitude up.”

“Oh, Bitty, we didn’t mean it,” Simmons said.

“Yes, she did,” her dad said, appearing long enough on screen to speak before he disappeared again.

“We want you to come home, but when you’re ready.”

“It’s nice here,” Bitty said, “like a proper home, but it still feels like I’m hiding, like I’m running. From adulthood, and my future.”

“Is it because you don’t want to start a life without Grant?”

“Probably,” Bitty agreed. She turned in the stool at the breakfast bar, and looked at Nan weeding in the garden with the latest bachelor, a farmer’s son named Colin. “But hiding in a tiny village in Scotland doesn’t seem like the answer either.”

“Do you want to come home?” Simmons asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then, choose a day, and we’ll send someone to come get you.”

She smiled, but that didn’t feel right either. Her parents, as usual, were there to save the day, rescue her, and bring her home. That’s what she’d loved, and hated towards the end about time traveling, that she had no safety net to catch her. She was on her own for once. 

“I still have to go visit Gran and Grandpa in Devon,” she said. “But I’ll let you know when and where to get me.”

Part of Bitty, some deep and buried part of her felt like running away. She wanted to hang up the phone, pack her belongings, and run as far as she could. There was a lot of world to see and god, she wanted to see it. But she was trying not to be the impulsive shit daughter she’d been. That girl would take off immediately and wouldn’t feel bad about it until she got in trouble. She had asked Grant to be good, to make the right decision even when it was hard, so she had to do the same for him and herself. If he could be a better person for her, she could be a better person for him.

* * *

When she arrived back home after a visit with Gran and Grandpa Simmons, she still felt confused, walking around with a white noise heart.

“I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I spent 3 months in Scotland and England, and I haven’t figured anything out. I can’t just keep doing nothing. I want to do something.”

She lay down on her parents’ bed and whined.

“You’re still young, Bits,” her mum said, playing with one of  Bitty’s loose curls. “You’ve got plenty to time to figure it out. Give yourself time.”

“You had three doctorates by the time you were 17,” she said into the bedspread.

“Yes, I did,” she replied, “but that doesn’t mean you have to do that, too. You and I are different people and I’m not expecting you to follow in my steps. I want you to be you, Bitty. I don’t want another Jemma Simmons, I want Elizabeth Fitz-Simmons in the world.”

“I know, but life would be easier if something was expected of me. I’d have a direction at least, a road map to follow.”

Her mum moved her hands to the thick of her hair, massaging at  Bitty’s scalp.

“That’s part of adulthood, unfortunately, love.”

Bitty groaned.

“I know,” her mum agreed.

“I don’t know what to do, Mum.”

“That’s okay.”

“How is it okay? How is this okay at all?”

“Because, Bitty girl, you are young, and bright, and have so much you can do. Because I believe in you, and no matter what you try or do, I will always be here to take care of you, to remind you how much life you still have, and remind you that I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mum.”

* * *

Every day, Bitty woke up, got dressed, and left the Lighthouse. She went to the library and researched. She went on long walks through the familiar streets of River’s End. She went to the café and drank tea that they specifically ordered for her and her parents. Nothing satisfied her, but she tried. When nothing sounded good, she found agents to bother, trailing her aunts or sitting with the computer geniuses in the situation room as they watched the  comms and surveillance of agents in the field. 

“I’m so bored,” she whined, throwing herself on her parents’ bed one night. Her mum set aside the book she was reading and turned her attention to Bitty. 

“What’s wrong, love?”

She buried her face into the bedspread and groaned loudly. 

“That’s okay, I know.”

Simmons picked up her book in one hand, and ran her hand through  Bitty’s hair, brushing through the strands, reading the book out loud to Bitty the way she used to when she was a kid. Bitty lay there quietly for a while, in the comfort of her mum’s presence, her mum scratching her scalp slowly, until her dad came in.

“Hey, we have a little bit of a problem.”

And then, he turned and left without another word. She followed her dad, with her mum right behind her, to the main situation room, the team gathered, staring at the screen.

“Zephyr One just signaled for docking,” Mack said to them as they stepped in.

“Zephyr One is already docked,” Daisy added.

Bitty caught her father’s eye.

“Doesn’t she travel in time?” she asked quietly.

“She does,” Fitz said. “But we want to be careful. It could be Ward but it might be a ruse.”

“Dad, what are the chances?”

“I don’t know, Bits, but we can’t just let them dock.”

“Dad,” she said again. “They’re sending codes from before I was born. You really think Hydra is trying to infiltrate pretending to be SHIELD agents from the 2010s?”

Fitz sighed.

“Let them dock, we’ll meet them at the docking bay,” he ordered.

She kissed his cheek and whispered her thanks, but when she tried to head to the docking bay, he caught her sleeve.

“Let the trained SHIELD agents secure it first, okay?”

She rolled her eyes, but let the team head up first, before following herself. Her dad kept himself nearby as the Zephyr carefully and skillfully touched down in the docking bay, and then he moved to stand in front of her as if Leo Fitz was enough to stop Hydra infiltrators from hurting her. He had a gun, though, pointed at the loading bay door of the Zephyr, steady and ready.

“Bitty,” he started to say when the bay door started to lower.

“Stay back, I know,” she said.

“Be careful, even if it is Ward, okay?”

“Yes, Dad,” she said with a roll of her eyes at his back, but stayed behind him anyway. She’d made jokes her entire life that her dad wasn’t strong, wasn’t formidable, could get beat up by everyone else’s dads. But she knew that that wasn’t true in any way. He had always had a darker side, which he kept in careful check, ever since she was born, even before. He was cold and calculating, steady in the face of danger in a way that was incongruent with how warm her dad was with her. Agent Fitz and her dad were two sides of the same coin, one unable to exist without the other. When Bitty had been kidnapped and hurt, her dad hadn’t shown up as her dad but as Agent Fitz, face hard and unforgiving. She’d never been afraid of him until that day. But as soon as he had her safe and in his arms, he’d switched like a light.

“You’re okay,” he’d murmured, brushing the hair out of her face. “I’ve got you now, Bitty. Dad’s here.”

She remembered feeling so safe, clutching onto the front of his button up with her bloody hands, tears dripping down her cheeks. She couldn’t focus on anything but the throbbing  pain of a metal pipe through her abdomen, but her dad and mum holding onto her helped.

Now, standing behind her dad, beside her mum, she felt shielded, no pun intended.

Grant Ward stood at the loading bay doors, hands up in surrender with a bag by his feet.

“Stay where you are, Ward,” Fitz called. She peeked out from behind her dad and waved shyly at Grant. “Bitty.”

“What?” she asked.

“You’re impossible.”

“Part of my charm. You can blame Nan for that.”

She couldn’t see his face but she felt his eye roll in her soul.

“I mean no harm, Fitz,” Grant answered.

“I’ll be the judge of that, thank you,” Fitz said, Agent voice running a chill down her spine.

“I’m just here for Bitty,” Grant replied.

“I’m aware of that.”

There was an awkward pause as agents traded quick looks, confused by this exchange.

“You really think I’d be stupid enough to walk into SHIELD headquarters if I wanted to take you down  _ or  _ hurt her?”

“Check his bag, Lopez,” Fitz ordered.

Grant sighed but stayed still as Agent Lopez stepped forward, holstering her weapon while her partner Agent Fisher stayed at her back, gun levelled at Grant in case he moved. Bitty itched to go to him wrap him in her arms and never,  _ never _ let him go.

“Dad,” Bitty started.

“Don’t,” he replied, that icy tone cutting her off.

“Just let the agents do their job,” her mum said.

She groaned and caught Grant’s gaze around her dad’s shoulder. He looked so good, a couple years older than when they last saw each other, wearing a neat trimmed beard and jeans with a t-shirt, his best look yet. She’d been right, he did just get hotter with age. She could see his secret, barely there smile from where she stood, and couldn’t help herself from smiling back.

“Elizabeth,” her father scolded, looking at her look at Grant.

“Just because you’re my dad doesn’t mean that I have to follow your orders. You’re not my senior officer.”

He sighed.

“I miss when you listened to me.”

“Get used to it, Dad. I’m going to be this insolent forever.”

“It’s clear, sir,” Lopez answered, setting Grant’s bag down and stepping away. “Just clothes.”

“I mean no harm, Fitz,” Grant repeated. “I’m just here to fulfill a promise.”

Bitty made an involuntary noise, emerging from the back of her throat like a high-pitched whine, needy and inhuman. 

“Da, please,” she said softly. 

“Fine. Go.”

She ducked around her dad and headed straight to Grant before her dad could change his mind. He grabbed his bag and stepped off the docking bay to meet her on the ground, dropping the bag to the ground as she launched herself into his arms.

“God, I missed you,” he muttered into her neck. “I don’t want to leave you ever again. It’s been too long. No more.”

“No more,” she agreed.

“May,” she heard her parents say in unison, but was too busy burying herself into Grant’s chest to care. 

“I thought I’d stop by with Ward,” May said confidently. “Wanted to see what the fuss was about.”

“May!” Simmons said again, stronger. There was a rush of movement as her parents rushed to meet May. “It’s so good to see you.”

There was a moment of Simmons and Fitz hugging May, while other agents called for Director Mack and Daisy to come see. 

“Wait, hold on,” her mum said, her hand wrapping around  Bitty’s bicep to pull her free from Grant. “This is our daughter.”

Bitty sighed but let herself get pulled into her family, giving Grant a look to stay there while she was away. 

“Daughter?” she asked, and then looked to Grant, and then back to Fitz and Simmons. “And you’re alright with this?”

“Not one bit,” Fitz admitted, “but you haven’t tried to say no to Bitty yet.”

“I’m Bitty,” she said with a nudge at her dad. “I was actually named after you. Elizabeth Melinda Fitz-Simmons.”

“You named your daughter after me?” May asked, looking to Fitz and then Simmons. 

“Of course,” Fitz answered.

May looked over Bitty and smiled.

“It’s nice to meet you, Bitty. I’m glad something good came out of the future.”

Bitty smiled back.

May had been a major part of Fitz’s stories growing up, talking about her Aunt May with such respectful reverence. She was the reason that her parents and Aunt Daisy survived so much, guiding them, having their backs, defending them. 

“Is it weird to ask you for a hug?” she asked. “I’ve heard a lot about you over my life, and I’d like to hug you.”

May smiled, and opened her arms for a hug that Bitty quickly stepped into. She was about the same height as her Aunt May, and tucked into May’s arms kind of perfectly. There was a quiet cooing noise that she knew came from her mum, but she tucked her nose into May’s collarbone with a soft sigh.

“It’s good to meet you,” she said.

“It’s good to hold you,” May said. 

Bitty stepped away as she heard her aunt Daisy call out May’s name, and returned to Grant’s side.

“Do you want to slip away while my parents are busy?” she asked, taking his hand in her own. “I know a spot they won’t find us.”

Grant grinned. 

“You sure you want to do this with me?” 

“I’ve been lost for a while, even before I met you, long before I met you. I don’t know where I'm going with life, what I’m doing. And I still don’t know. But when I’m with you, Grant, I don’t feel quite so lost anymore. You’re steadying, and I want you in my life.”

Grant pulled her in for a kiss, soft and sweet.

“Same, baby.”

“Come on.”

Grant followed her out of the docking bay without anyone noticing, and down into a warehouse where no one went. She pressed him into a wall between two shelves, sliding her body against him. 

“Been too long, Agent Ward,” she said into his neck, dragging her mouth over his skin, trying to memorize how his skin tasted.

“Been much too long, Miss Fitz-Simmons.”

“It’s Agent in this world, apparently,” she said, nipping at his pulse.

“Agent Fitz-Simmons,” he muttered. “I like how that sounds.”

“Don’t get used to it, you and I are retiring from the Agent life and settling down just as planned.”

“As planned,” he laughed, gripping her hips.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s been a decade since we planned that, and you’ve traveled through time, and I’m much older than you now,” he said, kissing her softly again. “I doubt that really counts as planned.”

“It’s just a few road bumps, but if you’ll still have me, I wouldn’t mind -”

He cut her off with a kiss, pressing her back a bit with the force of it. She lost track of time, feeling every inch of Grant beside her, wondering at how lucky she was that the universe decided she should get to meet him, and that he should get to meet her. How incredible that one mishap with a single device should send her to him. How incredible that they should have defeated all odds to end up here.

She pulled away, breathless, and Grant pressed his mouth into her forehead to rest.

“I want you, Bitty. Of course, I want you. I don’t care if there’s a decade between us. After all these years, it’s still been you. I should be the one asked you if you’ll still have me.”

She threaded her hands through his hair and stood with her body pressed along the length of him. He was so warm, and she delighted to feel it again, his warmth and his comfort. 

“I know what you’ve done,” she said. “I know who you are.”

She’d never consider Grant Ward a  nuzzler , but he actually nuzzled into her hair and now her neck. 

“I told you, you’re a good man, and I’ve fought so hard to get to you. I want you, Grant. All of you. Every last scar, and bit of blood on your hands.”

“It’s a lot of blood.”

“You did what you had to  to survive.”

He sighed.

“And if it wasn’t just for survival?”

“Then, that’s something you have to live with, and work through, but that is not going to change how I feel about you. I love you, remember?”

He smiled and kissed her. 

“I love you, too.”

He played with her hair.

“Your accent is particularly Scottish today.”

“I went to Scotland for three months.”

“That’ll do it. What did you do in Scotland?”

“I hung out with my Nan, and she tried to match-make me with some local Scottish boys.”

“Anyone you liked?”

“No one I liked as much as you. Turns out I have a type, and you don’t really find them in the small Scottish villages outside Edinburgh.”

He laughed, happy and full. She ran her hands down his chest, and sighed with her own full happiness.

“So, you’re going to build me a house on the water, right?” she asked.

“I will, with a big kitchen, and a back deck, and a laundry room, and a library, and a laboratory. Three bedrooms, at least.”

“We’re going to need five,” she stated.

“We’re up to five now?”

“One for us a master bedroom with an  en suite with the large soaking tub,” she said, and he made a noise like an agreement. “One for each kid, and then one for guests.”

“Of course, how could I forget guests?”

“A big beautiful yard for the kids and the dogs to play.”

Grant hummed. 

“And whatever you want. This is your home, too.”

“I don’t need anything,” he said, resting his chin on top of her head as she tucked herself into his chest. 

“Are you sure? You’re building everything for me; what do you want?”

He took a moment to think and shook his head.

“I’ve got my home right here, Bitty. I’ve got everything that I need with you safe, and happy.”

Soon, they’d have to decide what their first actual step was. Soon, they’d have their first actual fight. Soon, they’d start a life together, whatever that meant. Soon, they’d face her parents for real, and they’d step out into the world together but that moment, in the underground warehouse of the Lighthouse,  Bitty’s playground and childhood home, they were together  _ finally _ and that was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, folks!! The Redemption of Grant Ward is complete :) If you liked it, remember to leave kudos, comments, bookmark, share, whatever. I know this series is a little weird but thank you so much for reading!!!   
> Find me on tumblr as kaytikazoo if you want to chat, or follow me of Agents of SHIELD fics and other stuff!!! 
> 
> -K


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